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Dear Allan, Infinity and beyond,

Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

Top, TOP marks guys for the continuing success of your magazine. It has become a highlight of the month when I buy every new issue. You’ve really done wonders and re-awoken my nostalgia for movies that were an important part of my childhood and teens; movies like the 76 King Kong remake and the 82 Conan the Barbarian, but more importantly you’ve introduced me to things like The Shadow radio serial and The Phantom movie serial.

I’m a hardcore fan and collector of all things Robin Hood. I run a couple of fan pages online and I’m in the process of planning a Robin Hood YouTube channel and podcast. It’s my ambition to get a book published about Robin Hood in popular culture, exploring every aspect from the amazing silent Douglas Fairbanks classic Robin Hood (1922) covering (of course) the immortal Michael Curtiz/ Errol Flynn The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), the beloved Richard Greene series (1955-59), the Disney movie, Robin of Sherwood (1983-86) and on to Prince of Thieves (1991) and right up to date with the BBC TV series, the Ridley Scott movie and the Taron Egerton version. Over the years I’ve amassed a collection of over two thousand items of memorabilia and collectables, and the book and web productions will be a great place to showcase them.

Sherwood fandom is alive and prosperous, but perhaps not as visible as the fandom of other British heroes like James Bond or Doctor Who. I’d love to see you guys cover aspects of Robin in the media. Your articles are always superb so I’d be interested to read the opinions of both your older and younger writers. But there is one Robin Hood movie in particular I would like to see your write up of. It’s the movie that started it all for me: Robin Hood -Prince of Thieves (1991). Now I know it has its critics, but most of these are people who enjoy knocking Kevin Costner for some reason. Following his double Oscar win as director of Dances with Wolves, the media seemed determined to knock him off his perch, and I’ve never really understood that. Dances with Wolves showed his talents as an epic movie maker, and he was great in movies such as Field of Dreams, The Untouchables and JFK. Okay, his career has never really recovered from the twin flops of Waterworld and The Postman, but back in the early 90s thanks to Prince of Thieves and The Bodyguard he was undoubtedly the biggest star in the world. He is my favourite Robin and Prince of Thieves is my favourite Sherwood movie. He brought to Robin the same charisma Harrison Ford brought to Indy, and director Kevin Reynolds brought a sense of action movie scale that was equal to the likes of Rambo or Die Hard. All the derring-do of the legend is intact but there is an exciting action movie pace and lots of brutality. And WHAT a cast! Morgan Freeman as Azir, Christian Slater as Will Scarlett, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Marian and of course, chewing the scenery and enjoying himself immensely, Alan Rickman as the greatest ever Sheriff. There’s an incredible musical score composed by Michael Kamen, and thanks to its immortal theme song by Bryan Adams, the movie was everywhere back then. But what captured my 8-year-old imagination most was the toy and action figure line that were really fun to play with, as were the computer games for both the Nintendo and Sega platforms. This here was where my Robin Hood collecting began, just as my love for the franchise began with the movie. I would love to hear what you guys and Infinity readers think of the movie and other Robin Hoods on screen over the years. Also, from a collector’s POV it would be great to see Robin on the cover and maybe get a poster inside too?