Ridley Scott is back in the past, working on yet another epic period action film with Russell Crowe. This time, instead of going all the way back to the time of the Gladiator, Scott is taking on the story of Robin Hood, the master thief of Sherwood Forrest. Thus far, we’ve seen plenty of photos from the set hitting the web, all of which were of the spy variety. Until today, we have not seen anything official from Universal, the studio bankrolling the project.

Australian publication The Courier Mail has published a new photo set today, which includes our first shots of Cate Blanchett as Maid Marion, and a few shots of Crowe as the film’s title character getting some sword-driven action. It’s the sort of photo set that proves our general intuition about a film like this — it looks right. And based on the pedigree of Scott as an action director, we can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of excitement for the film’s first trailer, which should be attached to both Avatar (Dec. 18) and Sherlock Holmes (Dec. 25), say the folks at Dark Horizons.

Yet another reason to see both Avatar and Sherlock Holmes, as if you needed another. New photos are below. Robin Hood is in theaters May 14, 2010.