Jamie Foxx in 'Robin Hood: Origins' as Little John

Jamie Foxx (Photo: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

By Mike Fleming Jr.

Jamie Foxx did a good impression of Steve Harvey at last night’s Golden Globes, but here’s his next big-screen turn: He’ll play Little John in Robin Hood: Origins, the gritty Otto Bathurst-directed film that Lionsgate will put into production late summer or fall. He joins Kingsman: The Secret Service star Taron Egerton, who plays the title role, and Eve Hewson, who is set to play Maid Marian in a film that starts production after Egerton wraps the Kingsman sequel.

Related: Eve Hewson Landing Maid Marian In ‘Robin Hood: Origins’ Opposite Taron Egerton

Foxx’s character is more in the mold of the muscular turns he has put into films like Django Unchained than some wizened mentor. Little John is a battle-hardened but war-weary veteran of The Crusades who starts out distrustful of Robin Hood (they fought on opposite sides), and then warms to the young hero in the gritty revisionist take on the legend.

Bathurst is best known for Peaky Blinders, and the script is by Joby Harold, who wrote Knights Of The Roundtable: King Arthur, which Guy Ritchie wrapped with Charlie Hunnam. What they’ve got here has been compared to Robin Hood with a Dark Knight tone, as Robin Hood returns from fighting in The Crusades and finds that Sherwood Forest is rife with corruption and evil. He forms a band of outlaws and they take matters into their own hands. The picture is being produced by Appian Way’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson, and Safe House’s Harold and Tory Tunnell and Thunder Road’s Basil Iwanyk.

Foxx is repped by CAA and LBI Entertainment.

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