Marketing for Paul Greengrass’s ‘The Uprising’ Briefly Rebranded It as ‘The Rise of Robin Hood’ Before Backlash Forced a Reversal

The U.S. marketing team for Paul Greengrass’s upcoming film “The Uprising” briefly tried to sell the movie as “The Rise of Robin Hood,” a move that drew immediate backlash and was then taken down from promotional materials. The title change was short-lived, but it highlighted the tension between historical accuracy and campaign-friendly branding.

“The Uprising” is a historical drama about the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, also known in the United Kingdom as Wat Tyler’s Rebellion or the Great Uprising. The film centers on the uprising against the government of King Richard II, when unrest in England had been deepened by plague, war, climate pressures and economic hardship. Those conditions, together with wage stagnation and distrust of authority, provide the backdrop for one of the most famous popular revolts in English history.

The promotional material in question appeared on August 27 and included the subhead “The Rise of Robin Hood” along with taglines such as “Witness the Rise of Robin Hood.” By August 28, those references had apparently been removed after online criticism. The change was striking because the film’s subject, the Peasants’ Revolt, is a documented historical event, while Robin Hood is a separate folk figure whose legend does not belong to the revolt itself.

That distinction matters. Robin Hood is not part of the historical record of the 1381 uprising, and the chronology does not support folding him into it. Mentions of Robin Hood legends appear in recorded history several years before the Peasants’ Revolt, and earlier English judicial records used versions of the name such as “Rabunhod,” “Robinhood” and “Robbehod” as terms for criminals. Over time, that shorthand evolved into the outlaw hero known from folklore, but not into a participant in the revolt that “The Uprising” depicts.

The marketing detour likely reflected a practical concern: how to make a fourteenth-century rebellion seem legible and appealing to American audiences who may not immediately recognize the Peasants’ Revolt by name. The film had previously circulated under other titles before distributor Focus Features came aboard, including “The Hood,” suggesting that the production and marketing teams have long been looking for a way to connect the story to more familiar cultural touchstones.

That instinct is understandable, but the comparison to Robin Hood risks flattening a more complicated and more historically grounded story. The Peasants’ Revolt already contains a strong cast of characters and a dramatic political arc. It was a nationwide explosion of anger that shook the English ruling elite so severely that it is widely seen as a turning point in the long decline of serfdom in England.

Wat Tyler, one of the revolt’s central figures, returned from France as a soldier and found turmoil at home. In one later account, the revolt began after he killed a tax collector who was trying to assault his daughter in order to determine whether she had reached puberty and therefore owed a higher tax. Another major figure was John Ball, a preacher whose criticism of the nobility made him a heretic. He is associated with the line, “When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?” a rebuke to social hierarchy that has come to symbolize the revolt’s anti-elite spirit.

The revolt also has a clear villain in King Richard II, who was only 14 at the time. In a recorded statement attributed to him after the uprising was crushed, he reportedly declared that those seeking equality with lords were unworthy to live and promised harsher bondage for the rebels. That reaction underlines the central historical irony of the story: even a movement powerful enough to take over London was met with brutal retaliation once elite power regrouped.

That dynamic is part of why the story still resonates. The upheaval followed the Black Death and unfolded during the doldrums of the Hundred Years’ War, making it a reminder that mass unrest often grows out of deep structural strain. It was a revolt driven by ordinary people, and although it was eventually suppressed, it exposed how fragile the existing order had become.

The backlash to the Robin Hood branding also points to a broader point about adaptation. Historical fiction can benefit from recognizable symbols, but the Peasants’ Revolt does not need a fictional outlaw to make it compelling. Its history already offers rebellion, class conflict, state violence and ideological challenge in a form that is dramatic on its own. The film is set to open in theaters on September 10, and the controversy around its marketing has only sharpened attention on the story it actually tells.