Roused from his peaceful slumber and forced by bear prod to stand on his haunches and allow reporters to pet him at Cannes, Russell Crowe has thus far endured the initial barrage of Robin Hood-related questions without biting into anyone’s head like Granny Smith apple, so that’s something. Nevertheless, he’s already accused one journalist of being a stalker and “swatted” another from the London Times, according to this Deadline red carpet report, so perhaps that’s forthcoming—unless he finds a way to let off some steam soon, such as an old-fashioned prank call.
Amid all the predictable grousing, however, Crowe has hinted that a sequel to Ridley Scott’s update is possible should the film meet certain box office expectations, and we’ve also learned a few things about Crowe’s personal take on its storyline, namely that he believes the film offers a proper—though like everything related to Robin Hood, entirely fictional—explanation for the character’s motivation, which he believes has been sullied by centuries of storytellers adding their own embellishments. (“Whatever you think about Robin Hood is a perfectly understandable mistake,” he’s quoted as saying, not at all condescendingly.) More interesting than that, however, is Crowe’s belief that were Robin Hood around today, he would be “looking at the dissemination of media as the greatest injustice in the world” and fighting corporations like Disney and News Corp. So, what, he’d be running a bit torrent site?