UK Distributors Deny Robin Hood Link to The Uprising as Focus Features Pushes 1381 Rebrand
Updated
Updated · Slate · Sep 9
UK Distributors Deny Robin Hood Link to The Uprising as Focus Features Pushes 1381 Rebrand
3 articles · Updated · Slate · Sep 9
Summary
A week before release, The Uprising’s UK distributors said the film is a 1381 Peasants’ Revolt epic “not Robin Hood,” directly contradicting Focus Features’ US campaign.
Focus on Aug. 20 retitled the pitch as The Uprising: The Rise of Robin Hood, after earlier marketing had framed Andrew Garfield’s character only as part of a “birth of a legend.”
The film itself appears to split the difference: Garfield’s unnamed “Ploughman” is never called Robin Hood, but wears the green hood, leads a populist revolt and ends in a vigilante-style showdown with Richard II.
That muddled rollout is especially striking because the project’s earlier development reportedly included titles such as The Hood, suggesting Robin Hood DNA was present long before the late marketing reveal.
The dispute has left fans and industry watchers questioning whether the rebrand is a sales tactic or an attempt to recast Robin Hood as a working-class symbol rooted in the 1381 uprising.