What Happened
A24's grim reinvention of the world's most famous outlaw is finally reaching multiplexes. The Death of Robin Hood opens in U.S. theaters on June 19, 2026, with Hugh Jackman in the title role and Michael Sarnoski — the writer-director behind Pig and A Quiet Place: Day One — steering a version of the legend that trades Lincoln-green adventure for something far bleaker. This is not the cheery prince of thieves of Saturday-morning cartoons. Jackman plays an aged, dying Robin who is dragged off the battlefield of his own reputation and forced to reckon with a life built on robbery and killing.
The setup is deceptively small. Critically wounded, the old archer ends up in the care of a mysterious woman, played by Jodie Comer, who nurses and confronts him in roughly equal measure. Across 123 minutes the film peels back the myth to ask an uncomfortable question: what if the man we romanticized as a hero was, underneath the folklore, a ruthless criminal with an exceptionally good publicist? Sarnoski adapts the 17th-century ballad “Robin Hood's Death,” the grim coda of the legend in which the outlaw bleeds out far from Sherwood.
Shot on 35mm film by cinematographer Pat Scola, the movie leans hard into texture — mud, rain, firelight and the creak of a longbow. Jim Ghedi, a Sheffield folk musician, supplies a doom-laden score that matches the tone. The result, by design, is closer to a late-career Western than a swashbuckler.
Why It Matters
For A24, the release is another swing at turning prestige auteurs loose on familiar material. The studio that built its brand on Hereditary, Everything Everywhere All at Once and the record-setting horror hit Backrooms is increasingly comfortable financing star-driven films with an arthouse sensibility, and a melancholy Robin Hood headlined by Jackman fits that pattern neatly. It is counterprogramming in the truest sense, opening the very same weekend that Pixar's Toy Story 5 is expected to devour $150 million or more.
The casting tells its own story about where prestige drama sits in 2026. Jodie Comer, one of Britain's most in-demand performers across stage and screen, anchors the film opposite Jackman. Bill Skarsgård appears as Little John, Robin's loyal companion, with Murray Bartlett and Noah Jupe rounding out the ensemble. That is a formidable lineup of character actors for what is, structurally, an intimate two-hander about guilt and mortality.
It also marks a notable pivot for Jackman. Two years removed from his crowd-pleasing return as Wolverine, he is using his clout to back a slow, sorrowful character study rather than another franchise tentpole. Producing as well as starring, he has described the shoot as one of the most intense of his career — a long way from musicals and superheroes.
Reaction
The early verdict is respectful rather than rapturous. The Death of Robin Hood premiered at the Sydney Film Festival on June 12, 2026, where audiences got their first look at Sarnoski's stripped-down vision a week before the wider release.
Critics have largely praised Jackman while wrestling with the film's deliberate pacing. The film holds a 77% approval rating from early reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic logs a score in the low 60s, signaling generally favorable but divided notices. Deadline and Variety both single out Jackman's performance as among the most interesting takes on the character in years, admiring how he balances Robin's steely will to survive with genuine regret. The recurring criticism is tonal: several writers found the movie pensive and beautiful but a little one-note, low on the derring-do that the name “Robin Hood” still promises. In other words, manage your expectations about arrows and merry men.
What's Next
The immediate test is commercial. Opening against Toy Story 5 is brutal math, and A24 is positioning the film as a specialty play that can hold screens through the summer on word of mouth rather than a wide-release knockout. Adult-skewing dramas have over-performed lately, and a billion-dollar May at the domestic box office has left exhibitors hungry for counterprogramming that draws an older crowd.
There is an awards angle too. A summer launch is early, but A24 has shown it can sustain a campaign for months when a performance lands, and Jackman's transformation is exactly the kind of work that lingers in the conversation. The film was shot largely in Northern Ireland — at Belfast Harbour Studios and on location in the Mourne Mountains, Murlough Bay and Silent Valley — and that windswept landscape is one of its loudest selling points. Expect the visuals and Jackman's name to anchor the marketing as the film expands.
Closing Thoughts
Robin Hood has been reinvented for nearly every generation, from Errol Flynn's grinning acrobat to Disney's cartoon fox to gritty, big-budget origin stories that mostly came and went. What makes Sarnoski's version interesting is its refusal to start at the beginning. By picking up at the end — with the legend dying, doubting and alone — the film quietly interrogates how we build heroes in the first place.
Whether audiences want a Robin Hood movie this somber is the open question. But there is something fitting about a story so often told as triumphant adventure finally being handed to a filmmaker willing to sit with its sadness. If nothing else, The Death of Robin Hood is a reminder that the oldest myths still have new corners left to explore — and that a major star and a bold studio are still willing to look.
한글 요약
휴 잭맨이 전설적인 무법자로 돌아왔다. 6월 19일 미국에서 개봉하는 A24의 〈The Death of Robin Hood〉는 〈피그〉와 〈콰이어트 플레이스: 첫째 날〉의 마이클 사르노스키 감독이 연출한 작품으로, 유쾌한 의적 이야기 대신 늙고 죽어가는 로빈 후드가 자신이 저지른 살인과 약탈의 과거를 마주하는 어둡고 사색적인 드라마다. 조디 코머가 치명상을 입은 로빈을 돌보는 의문의 여인을, 빌 스카르스고르드가 동료 리틀 존을 연기한다.
이 영화는 35mm 필름으로 촬영되어 진흙과 빗물, 장궁의 질감을 강조하며, 사르노스키 감독은 17세기 발라드 '로빈 후드의 죽음'을 원작으로 삼았다. 6월 12일 시드니 영화제에서 처음 공개된 뒤 평단의 반응은 대체로 호의적이지만 갈린다. 로튼토마토 신선도 77%로 잭맨의 연기는 호평받았으나, 모험극의 활극을 기대한 일부 평론가는 다소 단조롭고 느린 전개를 지적했다.
개봉 첫 주, 1억 5천만 달러 이상이 예상되는 픽사 〈토이 스토리 5〉와 맞붙는다는 점이 최대 변수다. A24는 이 작품을 입소문으로 장기 상영을 노리는 특작으로 포지셔닝하고 있으며, 북아일랜드 모언 산맥과 멀로 만 등에서 촬영한 황량한 풍광이 강점으로 꼽힌다. 휴 잭맨이 울버린 이후 프랜차이즈 대신 묵직한 캐릭터 연구를 택했다는 점에서, 이번 성적이 향후 시상식 시즌 화제성에도 영향을 줄 전망이다.
참고: A24, 위키피디아, 로튼토마토, Deadline, Variety