For some, Robin Hood will forever be Errol Flynn swashbuckling his way through Sherwood Forest. For others, Kevin Costner’s pairing with Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham was simply unimprovable.

A new version of Robin Hood, destined for release this year, is to reveal a rather different side to the beloved outlaw: a “seriously militarized anarchist revolutionary” returning from an unjust Crusade with PTSD.

The 2018 Robin Hood, played by British actor Taron Egerton, will see a hardened crusader believing he has been deceived into fighting for a “bull---t” cause, returning to England full of resentment.

There, as he observes a “fractured” society, he is moved to his famous ambition to steal from the rich to give to the poor after observing the inequalities in society.

Newly-released pictures show the cast, which includes Jamie Foxx as Little John, using bows and arrows which, the actor said, have been computer-generated to make them “rapid-fire, almost like an AK”.