Alexander Skarsgård is a Viking prince obsessed with revenge in The Northman trailer
The film also stars Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor Joy, Willem Dafoe, and Björk
Aux News Alexander Skarsgård
Screenshot: The Northman
The first trailer for Robert Eggers’ The Northman is here. The epic film tells the story of a son’s quest for vengeance after his father, a Viking king, is killed by a rival Viking faction.
Alexander Skarsgård stars as the adult version of the boy, while Ethan Hawke and Nicole Kidman play his parents. Anya Taylor Joy is the prince’s unlikely ally, who tells him she has the “cunning to break men’s minds.” The movie also stars Claes Bang, Björk, and Willem Dafoe.
The trailer paints a bleak and dark life for the Vikings, where Skarsgård seems to spend a lot of the film shirtless and covered in dirt and blood. Throughout the footage, he repeats his vow to “avenge” his father, “save” his mother, and to “kill” the man who destroyed his family. (Weirdly, this comes close to matching the backstory for Skarsgård’s True Blood character, a former Viking vampire named… Eric Northman.)
Eggers’s previous films, The Witch and The Lighthouse, were both horror films, and The Northman is definitely his highest budget outing yet. He also co-wrote the screenplay for this film with the poet Sjón, a frequent Björk collaborator. The Northman is scheduled to hit theaters on April 22, 2022.
Skarsgård has had a busy year. He joined Succession for season three, and the season finale set things up for him to be an even more central member of the cast going forward. He also starred in Godzilla vs. Kong, and appeared in Rebecca Hall’s Passing. The actor also starred in the Paramount+ adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand.
Joy has also been keeping busy. In September she won an Emmy for her work in Netflix’s The Queen Gambit. She starred in this year’s Last Night In Soho, and will voice Princess Peach in next year’s Super Mario movie. She’s also part of the all-star cast for David O. Russell’s mystery film.
75 Comments
This cast looks pretty great, and I really am enjoying and looking forward to Eggers’s continued commitment to telling really interesting stories involving stinky-lookin’ people. Ethan Hawke, I should not have been surprised given his work in both The Good Lord Bird *and* Reality Bites, looks to fit naturally in this Eggers’s stinky world.
yah this cast looks sick, it also feels a little silly and I don’t mean that in a bad way because gonna be gruesome.
Part Three of the Unshowered Trilogy
That still looks like something taken at one of those wilderness manhood retreats.
I like a lot of people in the cast, so I feel somewhat bad I immediately thought of Norsemen, the Norwegian TV comedy.On the plus side, seeing the trailer through the lens of satire, it looked hilarious!
Eggers’ Hold the Dark
Hold the Dark gets a bum rap for being “lesser Saulnier”, but that discounts how strong the competition is. It’s still a pretty great movie if you’re not holding Blue Ruin and Green Room against it.
i don’t disagree at all. this movie will still be pretty good, but it doesn’t look anywhere close to the first two.
Ahhh, a movie about my ancestors’ family squabbles starring a bunch of my favourite actors. Thank you, Odin, for this wonderful gift!
“Ekki at þakka!” -Odin
Yes, I feel the same!
I found three errors in this article: Netflix’s The Queen Gambit —> Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit Eggers’s previous films, The Witch and The Lighthouse, were both horror films, and The Northman is definitely his highest budget outing yet —> this appears to be two separate thoughts Frankensteined nonsensically together He also starred in Godzilla vs. Kong, and appeared in Rebecca Hall’s Passing. The actor also starred in the Paramount+ adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand —> I assume these were supposed to be merged into one sentence or something, because no one would use “also starred” twice in row like that on purpose. Right…?
I prefer to spell it The VVitch and to pronounce it as The Vuh-Vitch.
I always pronounce Se7en “Se-seven-en”, and I pronounced Num3ers “num-three-ers” for the two or three weeks I had occasion to talk about Num3ers
I used to know a guy named David who went by Da5id online (after the character from Snow Crash) so I always called him “Dafiveid”.
Sometimes I wonder if we’re validating the lack of editorial standards here by providing proofreading services pro bono.
Validating? I was trying for shame!
No, otherwise you would stop coming or in your case, cumming to this site. Pointing out others mistakes is like crack to you or rubbing your baby dick while screaming things like “I just don’t understand why they don’t hire a professional proofreader”.Your the badly made, stale fruitcake of commenters.You will never leave.
yeah stop giving a fuck when it aint your turn.
So did you have separate orgasms for each mistake you found or just one huge one after finding the first two (like edging) and just exploded when you found the third?Is there cosplay involved? Do you do dress up like a school marm from little house on the prairie while squirming on your custom engraved butt plug that has “ I’m so smart!” on one side and “I have no life” on the other side?Is your greatest joy proofreading the only 3 Christmas cards you get from utility companies every year?Are you fingering your hole while proofreading thi? (Did the missing s make your rectum shiver with delight?)
And you get three gold stars to put on the fridge.
Yeah the AVClub articles have gotten pretty sloppy in terms of copy editing and grammar. Lots of redundancy as well, as you pointed out.
You know you can work here if you want to. Two requisites: Know how to read. Moving to L.A. or moving to L.A.
i mean we saw eric northman get revenge on the vampire that killed his family in true blood. i’m here for another version of it. i loved the witch and… bjork?? looks fun.
:]
True Blood prequel? I’ll allow it.
This wouldn’t be the first time Anya Taylor-Joy starred in a movie that was a stealth tie-in to another property.
“He also co-wrote the screenplay for this film with the poet Sjón, a frequent Björk collaborator.”…excuse me? Jesus, does this guy only make movies that are Extremely My Shit. Unbelievable.
This looks kinda different from his other movies but he’s never done me wrong before, and that cast is staaaacked. Let’s see how it goes.
While I realize it cannot be true do the time table, watching this I couldn’t help but wonder if Eggers had been playing Valhalla a lot while making this movie.
Kate Dickie plays a Pict, which made me wonder if he’d played Hellblade.
I’m really annoyed: I’m pointing my controller at the screen but Skarsgard isn’t moving where I want.
I’m really hoping we get a scene of him sprinting by a building and he accidentally begins climbing it and can’t remember how to jump off.
The basic plot feels like it’s been straight lifted from Vinland Saga… Vikings are just hot right now?
Since principal photography began in August 2020 and finished in December, while AC: Valhalla came out in November 2020, probably not.
…Which is the reason for the very first part of my response where I literally wrote that it cannot be true due to the timetable?
I… somehow did not grok that part of the sentence at all. Wow. Mea culpa.
Happened to me countless of times, no issues. I was just so confused by the response.
Anya sounded like she was revisiting the Slavic accent she adopted for New Mutants. The blonde woman on a horse doesn’t look like her, but I also don’t know who else it would be.
Maybe Kate Dickie[?] Looks a bit like her, but of course there’s lots of makeup, the hair/eyes, etc. . A few GOT folks in this, including The Mountain/Ser Gregor.
I don’t really see a resemblance, but then there’s only that brief shot of her in which we can only see so much. I had also read she was playing a Pict, so I would have expected her to look less like a valkyrie.
Oh, her casting/role, just read that – and yeah, that’s a great point. Huh, now I’m a bit baffled!
Based on the trailer, the plot seems to be basically every Viking related TV show/movie/video game I’ve ever seen smashed together. But it has Ana Taylor Joy so I’m definitely seeing it.
If you read the Icelandic sagas, many of them follow a similar formula of “I must avenge this!“, then lots of people die.
I didn’t expect the Qanon shaman look to catch on.
This does not appear to be about reproductive documentary star Peter North.
“reproductive documentary”? That’s the best euphemism I’ve ever seen.
As a historian, the growth in movies, TV shows, and video games about historical eras is very interesting to me, and very welcome. This looks good!
No one is going to comment that this seems to be like the original Hamlet story? The main character is named Amleth, it’s set in Denmark, and he wants to “save” his mother from the man who murdered his father (probably because she’s married to him).
Amleth was the direct inspiration for Hamlet. So it stands to reason that there will be more then a few similarities between this movie and Hamlet.
Caught that too.
That’s because Hamlet was directly inspired by the Amleth legend (which is what this is).
The legend of Amleth from the 13th century is the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet
So it’s a remake of Prince of Jutland (1994)? No offense to the new movie’s cast, but I don’t think they can match Christian Bale, Helen Mirren, Gabriel Byrne, Brian Cox, Kate Beckinsale, Tom Wilkinson and Andy Serkis.
I mean, I think they are making that fairly clear…? Right? Hamlet was based on stories whose main character was named Amleth.
Pretty sure you can just remove “…in The Northman trailer” from the headline.
Robert Eggers film + Bjork as some kind of sorceress…I’m in.
Of all the terrible acting in Godzilla vs. Kong. Alexander’s was the worst by a wide, wide margin.
Some Skarsgaards better than others I think.
He is the prettiest Skarsgaard, but not the most talented. It’s true.
He’s one of those actors, of which there are many, who struggles to elevate poor material. Give him good stuff to work with and he’s absolutely fine, occasionally excellent.
Generation Kill is still his best work for me.
Iceman and Ray is probably my favourite double-act in all of TV (well, probably after Lister and Rimmer). I tend to agree that he’s a perfectly good, sometimes great, actor who can’t always be relied upon to be good in dross.That said, he’s in good company on that front. Actors as good as Natalie Portman and Jennifer Lawrence are visibly checked out in some of their weaker films.
stealth Trueblood prequel about Eric Northman’s backstory, obv
Eggers makes a damn meticulous movie, and this looks fantastic. Anyone not stoked for this can’t be my friend.
Is this the Skyrim movie some people wanted?
The Lighthouse unfortunately fell apart by the end, but goddamn if he wasn’t going for it. And the Witch is a stone cold classic.Dude rebooted Conan? I’m IN.
Academy ratio is back, baby!
Looks awesome, but something tells me that this isn’t going to be as straightforward as the trailer implies.
Way to bury the lede that Björk is returning to acting after swearing it off forever after her toxic experience with Lars von Trier in Dancer In The Dark.
She’s barely in it. It’s almost like they shot a music video with her and then interspersed it throughout the movie.
Also she lent Eggers a fish for the shoot and she was *not happy* when she found out what he did with it.
You’ve seen it already?
Yes.
This is going to be prime fodder for Norse historians on Youtube to complain about movies never doing enough research to learn that vikings bathed and had colorful clothing.
The story appears to be pretty basic for an Eggers film.But I think they are trying their best to market this to a wider audience as much as possible. I expect this to be a beautiful looking film with some great performances.
My name is Inigo Montoya…
Does he turn into a vampire at the end?