The CW Eyes Robin Hood Drama

The CW is reportedly developing a new Robin Hood adaptation.

According to The Hollywood Reporter the network is developing a new take on the legends of Robin Hood and has handed a pilot script order. The drama, titled Sherwood, would be set in England around 1072 and would follow a young noblewoman who becomes involved with Robin Hood and his ‘merry men’.

Robin Hood is traditionally associated with the reign of King John who reigned between 1199 and 1216 and famously had to sign the Magna Carta to appease rebel barons. The earlier setting of The CW proposed drama ties in with theories that the origins of Robin Hood actually date back to the Norman conquest in 1066 and to Hereward the Wake who resisted the Norman occupation from Ely in Cambridgeshire.

Robin Hood has been adapted for television and film many times with the most recent being the BBC television series (which starred Jonas Armstrong) that ran between 2006 and 2009. Prior to that the HTV/ITV series  Robin of Sherwood (which starred Michael Praed & then Jason Connery) ran between 1984 and 1986.

Disney produced an animated adaptation of Robin Hood in 1973 and the 1992 film Robin Hood: Princes of Thieves is perhaps the legend’s most famous big screen outing. And let’s not forget the children’s comedy Maid Marion and her Merry Men which ran on the BBC between 1989 and 1994 and starred Tony Robinson (who also co-wrote the series) as the Sherriff of Nottingham.