“He was not a hero,” states the titular character in Director Michael Sarnoski’s dark re-imagining of the legendary outlaw archer of Sherwood Forest, The Death of Robin Hood.

Sarnoski’s adventure-thriller finds an aging Robin Hood suffering an injury in a battle that he thought would be his last. Forced to grapple with his violent past, he gets a chance at salvation when he meets a mysterious woman and a young girl.

On June 13, after the DGA membership screening in New York, Sarnoski discussed the making of The Death of Robin Hood during a Q&A moderated by Director Danny Strong (Rebel in the Rye). Sarnoski is also scheduled to discuss the film following the Los Angeles DGA screening on June 28.

During the conversation in New York, Sarnoski spoke about the advantages of shooting on film.

“I loved it. I think I mostly liked it because it didn’t really change my method of shooting with [DP] Pat Scola, but it kind of felt like it brought the rest of the crew sort of onto the same page with us. They were like, ‘Oh we’re taking each of these setups very seriously. We’re not just burning film for the sake of it. It sort of creates this sense of sacred focus on set. We shot on all these real locations and there’s something about capturing this natural light through this chemical process that feels so visceral and real. But also, because it’s this kind of deconstruction of a legend and folklore, we wanted it to have a little bit of a timeless feel to it almost like this could have been made any time in the last 50 years.”

Sarnoski’s other directorial credits include the feature A Quiet Place: Day One and episodes of the series Olympia (co-directed with Hisonni Mustafa). He was also nominated for the DGA’s Michael Apted Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Theatrical Feature Film for his 2021 feature, Pig.

Sarnoski has been a DGA member since 2023.