Game of Thrones vet Sean Bean joins new Robin Hood show as the Sheriff of Nottingham

Sean Bean, famous for joining huge fantasy series like The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones and then dying early on in the adventure, has a new gig: he'll play the Sheriff of Nottingham in a new show about Robin Hood, the legendary English outlaw who steals from the rich and gives to the poor.

In most versions of the Robin Hood story, the Sheriff of Nottingham is a straight-up jackass; who do you think is keeping the poor so poor in the first place that Robin Hood need to help out? We often see the Sheriff of Nottingham mistreating the people, and sometimes he has a lecherous desire for Robin Hood's lady Maid Marian. He's appeared onscreen well over a dozen times, whether opposite Errol Flynn's heroic Robin Hood 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood, as a literal wolf in Disney's 1973 animated movie, or as played by Alan Rickman in 1991's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. And in every version, he's just the worst.

It sounds like this new show will take a different tack. Here's the official description for Sean Bean's version of the character, via Variety:

"This vision of the Sheriff of Nottingham is unique: a statesman, a strategist, and a builder of Nottingham itself. A loving father, a politician, and cousin to King Henry II. He navigates the dangerous tides of power, facing not only an outlaw in the woods but also the ambitions of Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Norman Barons that surround him. Cunning and pragmatic, he is a man who rules with an iron hand, not out of cruelty, but an unshakable belief that the law, as Normans see it, must be preserved."

It sounds like this new show, which is simply called Robin Hood, will try to give the character some dimension; he almost sounds like a good guy until we get to the bit about him ruling with an iron hand. And frankly, that sounds a little corny to me; sometimes, people with power abuse that power, and not every bad thing they do has a good justification. I don't know if the Robin Hood story in particular will benefit from this muddy, "there's good and bad on both sides" kind of angle.

But we'll see. Robin Hood doesn't have a release date yet, but the first season will run for 10 episodes and come out on MGM+. It's not known if those 10 episodes will tell the whole story or if this is supposed to be an ongoing series. Robin Hood himself will be played by Australian actor Jack Patten, a popular up-and-comer in Hollywood.

Of all the streaming services out there, MGM+ may be one of the least well-known, which doesn't bode wonderfully for the Robin Hood show, but there's always a chance it could break out into the wider culture, especially with a name like Bean attached. MGM+ seems to have an affinity for English folklore. A couple years back, it aired a season of TV based on Bernard Cornwell's book series The Warlord Chronicles, about the adventures of King Arthur...and then canceled it.

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