Jeremy Renner Attends Premiere, Months after Snowplow Crush

Host and Executive Producer Jeremy Renner arrives for the red carpet premiere of Disney+ original series "Rennervations" at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, California, on April 11, 2023. (AFP)
Host and Executive Producer Jeremy Renner arrives for the red carpet premiere of Disney+ original series "Rennervations" at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, California, on April 11, 2023. (AFP)
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Jeremy Renner Attends Premiere, Months after Snowplow Crush

Host and Executive Producer Jeremy Renner arrives for the red carpet premiere of Disney+ original series "Rennervations" at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, California, on April 11, 2023. (AFP)
Host and Executive Producer Jeremy Renner arrives for the red carpet premiere of Disney+ original series "Rennervations" at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, California, on April 11, 2023. (AFP)

Jeremy Renner attended the premiere for his new series Tuesday, capping a remarkable recovery less than four months after the “Avengers” star was nearly killed in a snowplow accident.

Renner was surrounded by family and supporters at the “Rennervations” premiere in Los Angeles, where he posed for photos and did interviews, at times making use of a cane and a knee scooter. At one point he flashed photographers a thumbs up sign while moving down the carpet.

Renner was crushed by his 7-ton snowplow on New Year’s Day while trying to help free a relative’s car at his Nevada home. The actor has said he broke numerous bones and suffered a collapsed lung and pierced liver in the accident.

“Rennervations,” which premieres on Disney+ on Wednesday, follows Renner as he transforms large vehicles into community spaces for young people in India, Mexico, Chicago and Nevada. The purposes range from serving as a mobile music studio to a water filtration truck for a community in India.

Renner said his aim was to give young people access to things they might not already have and present opportunities they might not know existed.

Renner wrote the theme song for the show, something he did while working on another show.

“I use music and piano to write songs and use it like therapy for me,” he said.

Construction and music have been creative outlets for Renner, who is best known for playing the superhero Hawkeye in the Marvel “Avengers” films and his own spin-off TV series.

Marvel co-star Anthony Mackie appears in the show, and Renner said the secret to their friendship is they “laugh a lot.”

Renner, a two-time Oscar nominee, told Diane Sawyer in an interview that aired that while he thought he might die from his injuries, he refused to be “haunted” by the accident.



A Small Serbian Town Is Home to Robin Hood in a New TV Series 

Showrunner John Glenn poses with director Jonathan English prior to an interview. (AP) 
Showrunner John Glenn poses with director Jonathan English prior to an interview. (AP) 
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A Small Serbian Town Is Home to Robin Hood in a New TV Series 

Showrunner John Glenn poses with director Jonathan English prior to an interview. (AP) 
Showrunner John Glenn poses with director Jonathan English prior to an interview. (AP) 

Villages and castles from 12th-century England came to life in a small town in Serbia for the filming of a new series about Robin Hood that has just wrapped in the landlocked country in southeast Europe.

The 10-episode take on England’s beloved medieval outlaw who, in lore, stole from the rich to give to the poor, comes from Lionsgate Television, and is expected to premiere on MGM+ in the US and parts of Europe later this year.

The Associated Press recently visited the set in Simanovci, the village which is home to a film studio and not far from the capital of Belgrade. Thorough research for the series was visible in the scenography and costumes, taking the cast — and the studio — back in time to the stony interiors of a candlelit castle, complete with stained-glass lancet windows.

The “sweeping, romantic adventure” offers a historically grounded look into how Robin Hood grew up to become an outlaw-turned-hero in the wake of the Norman conquest of England, the producers say.

“We actually show the beginning of Robin Hood,” producer, director and writer Jonathan English, who was a main driving force behind the project, said in an interview. “We start the story with him as a child.”

Self-described as a “huge fan of all things medieval,” English marveled at Robin Hood’s persistent global appeal.

“You can stop a pensioner on the streets of Belgrade and he knows who Robin Hood is. You can stop a teenager on the streets of Beijing, and they know who Robin Hood is,” he said.

Asked whether the story is still relevant, following countless cinematic and small-screen adaptations, English insisted that “it is incredibly relevant, probably more today than ... 50 years ago or 100 years ago, even.”

“It’s a story about class and the absolute tyranny of class, people who believe that they can have everything and control everything and can own everything and everybody else could just, you know, get lost,” he said. “There’s always been wealthy people, but now you have uber-rich people. And the divide between the uber-rich and the rest of the world is extraordinary now.”

The show’s plot centers strongly on the romance between Robin and Marian. He is a Saxon forester’s son and Marian is the daughter of a Norman lord but they overcome the divide to jointly fight for freedom and against injustice.

Australian actor Jack Patten plays Robin, joined by Lauren McQueen as Marian. The two appear alongside Sean Bean as the notorious Sheriff of Nottingham, and Connie Nielsen, who plays Eleanor of Aquitaine, the queen of England and wife of Henry II.

Patten admitted he was nervous ahead of his “third gig since getting out of drama school.” His Robin is “any young 24-year-old ... trying to find his place in the world” and who “gets dealt some pretty tricky cards.”

McQueen said Marian’s character will be “quite empowering” for young women watching the series.

Filmed in multiple locations in Serbia and with hundreds of staff and crew, the series is “huge” even by Hollywood standards, showrunner and writer John Glenn said. He described the new show as “much more Peaky Blinders in tone” than previous incarnations, referring to the hit UK TV series about gangsters in 1920s Birmingham.

Both Glenn and English said they chose Serbia because of high-standard facilities and crews but also because of the natural scenery that could mimic a medieval English landscape.

“It’s hard to find ancient forests now in England,” English said. “There’s not a lot of undeveloped wilderness.”