THERE have been multiple onscreen retellings of the Robin Hood legend, starring men in tights and men with mullets. But Russell Crowe was sure of one thing: he wanted his version to be different.

In fact, the muscular New Zealand-born star told producers of Ridley Scott's new epic – Robin Hood – that he would not take the role unless this version of Nottingham's world-renowned outlaw was different.

"I said I'd do Robin Hood, but only if it were a fresh take," the Gladiator star explains. "It is one of the longest-surviving stories in the English language. That requires due respect.

"I took the attitude that if you're going to revitalize Robin Hood, it has to be done on the basis that whatever you thought you knew about the legend was an understandable mistake.

"It has to be different from what has come before."

Fortunately, he was working with a like-minded team. Director Ridley Scott has worked with Russell on four previous films. They are, in the words of co-star Mark Strong, "like an old couple".

Together with producer Brian Grazer, they concluded this version of the tale should be historically located, in the age leading up to the Magna Carta.

The result is a "man behind the myth" sort of retelling – Robin Hood – the making of the legend.

The film spans the years from the death of King Richard I in 1199 to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215.

Set against the backdrop of the Crusades, this action-adventure would give historical framework to the later exploits that had been covered in many other versions of the tale.

"Take Robin and Little John, for example, who don't get on when they first meet," says Russell.

"When we first meet them in our film, they have a disagreement. But that doesn't take place on a log over a creek with a staff fight, which has been done to death. What we've done is to redefine the times and shift the timeline."

The stories of Robin are among the oldest in England's oral histories, stretching far back into the medieval period of the 9th century with tales of "Robin the Be-header" and finding literary form with surviving 15th and 16th-century ballads such as A Gest of Robyn Hode, Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar and Robin and the Monk.

Russell admits to a long-standing interest in the hero that dated back before he was offered the role.

"I was very enthusiastic," he says. "Robin Hood has always been in the back of my mind since I was a child.

"I was a big fan of the various incarnations I saw when I was growing up.

"There's a universal connection that everyone makes to Robin Hood, which is at the core of the story: there might be somebody out there who cares enough to redress the imbalance. There's an empowerment quality about Robin to which people respond."

For producer Brian Grazer, getting Ridley Scott on board was crucial to the project.

"If we were going to make this film, it had to be the Gladiator version of Robin Hood," he says.

"I wanted to understand how brutal that time was and have it visually expressed in the most exciting and thrilling kind of action-adventure. Only Ridley can do that."

Ridley himself has a long history of successfully directing period films.

"I love them," he says. "I started with The Duellists, and then I've done the Roman epic and now I've gone back to medieval times again."

Like Russell, he was determined not to confine Robin's story to the outlaw legend.

"Everyone talks about Robin Hood robbing from the rich and giving to the poor but we felt it was relevant to choose a point in medieval folklore when the environment is on the edge of starvation and neglected by the crown," he says.

"The hierarchy is the enemy, and the everyman who will come against them is Robin Hood. Within that idea, we have not forgotten the expectation and the romanticism of the legend.

"Is there humour in this? Yes. Is there a lot of action? Yes."

So the traditional legend has evolved into a kind of English foundation myth. At its heart, it has the historical signing of the Magna Carta which marked the foundation of modern law. The hero Robin discovers his father was murdered for demanding these rights.

"We have a situation where the man who basically invented taxation is the same King John who signed the first version of the Magna Carta," explains Russell.

"We have a period between 1199 and 1215, and it felt like that was the ideal breeding ground for revolution... or the birth of a revolutionary figure.

"As much of the film is predating the Magna Carta, then it's possibly the birth of a nation as well – the birth of England and everything that is great about it."

To prepare for this role, Russell read more than 30 books about Robin Hood and the late 12th and early 13th centuries.

"Robin is a witness to his father's death at the age of five," explains Russell. "He is then left in a monastery with the Templar Knights in France.

"His guardians go off to the Crusade but several years later when they come back, he's not there. He's had a very hard time, been treated badly, and he's gone with the one piece of equipment that he was left with, his father's cuirass.

"You can imagine a small child dragging around a fully grown man's chest-plate armour."

When we are introduced to Robin during Richard's siege in France, he has no knowledge of life before his father was killed.

"He's suppressed the memory of watching his father die," says Russell.

"In his mind, his mother and father just got rid of him and stopped loving him. That's what has been on his mind for 35 to 40 years.

"But now he's close to England again," Russell continues. "Here's a guy who's travelled across Europe and all through the Middle East. He's seen a variety of different ways people live, and when he gets back to England he's surprised this seems to be the most suppressive place.

"We follow a man on a journey of self-discovery. Along the way he begins to remember his past, and his quest solidifies. He realizes fate has overtaken him and he has joined in something much larger than he thought it was. In the process of finding out who he is, he takes up his father's work, where he left off."

Robin Hood opens next Friday, May 14 – see Wednesday's Post for our full review of the film and online at thisisnottingham.co.uk.