Ridley Scott's Nottingham, a revisionist take on the Robin Hood legend with the Sheriff of Nottingham as a good guy, was all set to go merrily riding through the glen next month. But Universal has now put the movie on hold, with no concrete indication of when it will go before cameras, but a strong suggestion that it won't be until next year.
Three reasons have been given for the delay. Firstly, the script, which was originally written by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris and then polished by Brian Helgeland, is not yet up to the standard that the studio would like. Secondly, the possibility of a strike by the Screen Actors' Guild could mean that filming would have to stop before it was finished. Thirdly, there are concerns that if the production doesn't hold off until next spring then the forest locations will not have the required verdant lushness. Apparently no matter how much you pay them you can't force a tree to be green when it doesn't want to.
So, given that Nottingham was set for release next November, if it had started filming now, it's now very unlikely that we'll see it much before the end of 2010. It's not clear whether the delay will mean any change in cast, which currently includes Russell Crowe as Nottingham and Sienna Miller as Maid Marian.
What does this mean for Ridley Scott? Will he now push one of his other productions up in his schedule? He's planning an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, so might that be fast-tracked? Or could he roll the dice on the strange Monopoly movie he's been discussing?