In April 2020, Disney announced that it was working on the project to adapt yet another animation classic, the Robin Hood design, which featured the outlaw in the form of a fox. Directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada (of Encanto) and screenplay by Kari Granlund – who adapted Lady and the Tramp – according to IMDBpro, the film is still in development three years later, perhaps running the risk of being overtaken by the project to adapt Bambi, announced today and perhaps to be directed by Sarah Polley. It will be?

With an unforgettable soundtrack, Robin Hood turns 50 in 2023 and would be a great bet for the studio. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, the animation focused on Robin’s antagonism to Prince John, with support from Little John, Friar Tuck, and Maiden Marian, always on the run from the Sheriff of Nottingham. The story’s drama is economic, Robin Hood fights against Prince John’s excessive taxes that leave his subjects in misery.

The cartoon took a while to hit the screens and it wasn’t something that Walt Disney enjoyed when he was still alive. Even when he was working on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937, he wanted to adapt the twelfth-century legend of Reynard the Fox, but since it wasn’t exactly about a heroic character, it lost out to other films. Animator Ken Anderson searched for a “classic tale” and found the story of Robin Hood that would maintain the strategy of keeping the cartoons with animal characters and transform Robin into a cunning fox, using his abilities to protect the Nottingham woods community.

Not everything was rosy and Anderson was somewhat frustrated with some changes in his designs, for example, he wanted the Sheriff as a goat, but director Wolfgang Reitherman insisted that he had to be a wolf to maintain the villain stereotype. Another director’s change, inspired by the success of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), reduced the number of Robin’s friends to the figure of Little John as the main partner so it could have a buddy film feel. Reitherman, who has directed or co-directed every animated feature since Sleeping Beauty and was one of Walt’s own trusted “Nine Old Men”, led the animation department, following the logic of action and pacing, not elaborating too deeply on the story, putting together several situations more than being faithful to the legend.

To dub the animation – in pre-famous times – Disney chose Brian Bedford (Robin) and Monica Evans (Lady Marian), bringing the iconic Peter Ustinov to an inspired interpretation of Prince John, younger brother of Richard the Lionheart. Anyone who has seen Jungle Book, released in 1967, will recognize that Little John is a reissue of Baloo the bear, with actor Phil Harris voicing the hilarious character (Phil, by the way, also voiced O’Malley the cat in Aristocats). Speaking of Jungle Book, one star who was irritated to be left out of Robin Hood was Louis Prima, who had had success as the ape King Louie, who called his follow-up album Let’s “Hear” it For Robin Hood.

If there is a great highlight in Robin Hood, it is the soundtrack signed by country music star Roger Miller (who voices the Minstrel Rooster). Composed a few years before the film hit the screens, it includes classics such as Oo-de-Lally and Love (Oscar-nominated), as well as beautiful Not in Nottingham. By the way, Robin does not sing in the film, only Marian and Little John, in addition to the Rooster. The playful song The Phony King of England is inspired by and resembles an English folk song, with the dances being a re-enactment of sequences from Aristocats, The Jungle Book, and Snow White.

Robin Hood hit theaters in November 1973 to lukewarm critical reception but a respectable $33 million at the box office (it cost $5 million). The original promise of the Disney Plus platform was to launch the new Robin Hood later this year. Can it?

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