Trivia / Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Alan Rickman turned down the role of the Sheriff twice before he was told he could more or less have carte blanche with his interpretation of the character.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: Bryan Adams's "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You". The song holds the record for the longest unbroken run at the top of the UK charts at sixteen consecutive weeks.
• California Doubling:
  • While most of the movie was filmed in England, it wasn’t filmed in Nottinghamshire, with Buckinghamshire, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, and Wiltshire all standing in, while Nottingham Castle was actually in France.
  • More precisely about Northumberland, the Sycamore Gap Tree and Hadrian's Wall were used as a random tree and wall in Nottinghamshire. The centuries old tree was felled on 28 September 2023 in an act of vandalism.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Sean Connery was first offered the cameo of Lord Locksley but passed, as he felt he had been playing a lot of fathers in recent years.
• Dawson Casting: 61-year-old Sean Connery as 37-year-old Richard the Lionheart. Could double as Artistic License – History, as the producers wanted Connery in the film in some way, and after he turned down being Robin Hood's father, Richard was the most likely role after that (and he is a very kingly actor).
• Dueling Movies: Released the same year (1991) as Robin Hood, starring Patrick Bergin as Robin and Uma Thurman as Marian. In the U.S., it got shunted off to TV and video because of the Morgan Creek film, but it was released theatrically in other countries, including Britain.
• Fake Brit:
  • Kevin Costner, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Christian Slater, Michael Wincott, and Mike McShane.
  • Sean Connery is British, but King Richard was certainly not a proud Scotsman.
• Fake Nationality: Morgan Freeman from Tennessee plays Azeem, from the Middle East.
• Fatal Method Acting: Averted. BRIAN BLESSED was almost killed filming his death scene.
• Follow the Leader:
  • The film copies so many of the unique and distinctive elements of the 1980s British Robin Hood TV series Robin of Sherwood that the creators of the latter actually briefly wondered whether they should sue. They quickly decided against the inevitable hassle and stresses, and just waved it all off.
  • This movie itself kicked off a string of costume drama/adventure films, including ones set in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and swashbuckler films in general.
• The Foreign Subtitle: In Denmark, Robin Hood: The Outlaw.
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: This movie was not the first time that Sean Connery, who made a legendary cameo as King Richard, had co-starred with either Kevin Costner or Christian Slater as he’d worked with the former on The Untouchables (1987) and the latter on another medieval film The Name of the Rose.
• Money, Dear Boy: For his unbilled walk-on cameo at the end, Sean Connery received $250,000, which he donated to charity.
• Prop Recycling: Kenner recycled a lot from their other lines to create action figures and playsets for this film, most notably the Super Powers Collection and various Star Wars molds.
• Throw It In!:
  • Christian Slater ad-libbed Will Scarlet's line of "Fuck me, he cleared it!" after Robin and Azeem are catapulted over the castle wall. Kevin Reynolds kept it in the film because it was funny, despite the historical inaccuracy (though as has been pointed out several times on the main and YMMV pages, he wouldn't really have been speaking English at all anyway - think of it as Translation Convention for a period-accurate curse).
  • Alan Rickman ad-libbed the line about cancelling Christmas.
  • When Guy of Gisbourne is ordering his men to follow Robin out of Marian's courtyard his horse suddenly rears up. This wasn't intentional, but Michael Wincott managed to stay on the horse and finish his line, so the crew decided to use the shot.
• Tie-In Cereal: The film had a tie-in cereal with pieces shaped like arrows, shields, and archers.
• Uncredited Role: Sean Connery is uncredited for his cameo role.
• Wag the Director: Kevin Costner and Kevin Reynolds had a few disagreements onset, culminating with Costner, who was also a producer, taking over the editing of the film, going to the extent of physically locking the original editor Peter Boyle out of the editing suite. However, the producers were contractually obliged, under Directors' Guild rules, to show their cut to Reynolds. He was less than impressed with what they'd done to his film. It would only get worse with their next collaboration.
• What Could Have Been:
  • This early draft is a lot more fantastical than the final version.
  • Robin Wright was set to play Marian, but she had to drop out due to her pregnancy, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio signed on to replace her. Elizabeth Hurley, Nicole Kidman, and Ally Sheedy were also considered, while Sophie Marceau auditioned.
  • Mel Gibson was originally offered the role of Robin Hood. He turned it down, not wanting to do another period piece after starring in Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet. Cary Elwes was offered the role and turned it down because he thought the plot was too contrived. He did, however, portray the character in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
  • Johnny Depp turned down the role of Will Scarlet.
  • John Cleese, Jon Finch, Michael Gambon, Richard E. Grant, John Hurt, Ian McKellen, John Malkovich, Sam Neill, Oliver Reed, and Patrick Stewart were considered for the Sheriff of Nottingham.
  • Richard Griffiths passed on the opportunity to play Friar Tuck.
  • Michael Kamen had composed the melody that became "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" years before he decided to use it to compose the love theme for this movie. Bryan Adams, however, was not his first choice as a singer or lyricist: Kate Bush was, but she turned Kamen down. Annie Lennox was then interested, but she wanted to write the song in Old English, which Kamen didn't like. Lisa Stansfield was also interested, but the head of her label said no. Former Chicago singer Peter Cetera then wrote a song with the melody but Kamen wasn't satisfied with what Cetera came up with. Only after that did Kamen bring it to Bryan Adams, who wrote the final version with Robert John "Mutt" Lange.

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