It seems that Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe aren’t done with one another just yet. Variety is reporting that their respective man-crushes will continue for a fourth picture, with Scott set to direct the no-nonsense actor in the Universal Pictures action drama Nottingham, sold last year as a spec script by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, creators
of the Showtime series Sleeper Cell, as well as writers of Bulletproof Monk.

Crowe will star as the titular sheriff in a revisionist take on the
Robin Hood tale, with Nottingham cast as a noble lawman who labors
under the rule of a corrupt king, and as caught up in a love triangle with Maid Marion and
Robin Hood. The movie comes on the heels of Scott and Crowe’s last collaboration, American Gangster, and will shoot after the filmmaker finishes directing Leonardo DiCaprio in Body of Lies. Brian Grazer will produce the film for Imagine Entertainment.

Casting will say a lot about this movie, which is easy to see in multiplexes, if not exactly thrilling, on the surface of things. It’ll be interesting to see how high the producers and bankrollers stretch for Robin Hood, who by default is here playing second fiddle. As for Maid Marion (assuming she’s halfway decently sketched), paging Rachel McAdams… If she can’t be coaxed into a commitment, however, one could see Rachel Weisz in the part, I suppose, depending on how high the spitfire quotient is.