At the end of the new wave of horror–where the found footage film genre finally fell to the dirt for the last time–Robert Eggers arrived atop A24 with The Witch. The slow burn depiction of a family fraught with doubt and ripe with the guilt of their sin being tormented by a witch hidden in the woods is oppressively unsettling. The Witch set a trend for A24 and horror that saw a slew of horrific dramas debut on its successful coattails. Four years later, A24 and Eggers released The Lighthouse to similar critical praise. The director’s propensity for period pieces–and their era-specific dialects–lead him invariable to the frosty island of Iceland. Yes, Eggers’ new movie is an epic Viking revenge tale boasting a breathtaking cast titled, The Northman.
The Northman production idea was leaked in 2019. Rumors immediately began swirling surrounding casting and scale. In a sit down with Collider’s Editor-in-Chief, while doing press for The Lighthouse in 2019, Eggers said he’d been thinking about how he was going to bring audiences to the Viking era for two years already. As pre-production ramped up in 2020, Eggers again commented on the massive scope of the film saying,
“There’s many locations in the film, so we were constantly going on scouts to find places or reassess places that we have found, and we’re building sets there. We’re designing all these worlds, building these villages. We’re making thousands of costumes and props, training the horses the things they’ll need to do, designing the shots…there’s a lot more story boarding. Generally, I only storyboard the scenes that have visual effects or animals and stunts–things where all the departments need to be on the same page for it to work out. But this movie, there is rarely a scene that isn’t on a boat or doesn’t have a lot of extras. We’re story boarding most of the film, which is taking a lot of time."
For story details, casting, and more, here’s a breakdown of everything we know about The Northman.
When Is The Northman's Release Date?
The Northman arrives exclusively in theaters on April 22, 2022. After a lengthy delay at the start of production, The Northman faced another small delay in its theatrical release, moving the release date from April 8 to April 22.
What is The Northman About?
Written by Robert Eggers and Icelandic writer, Sjón, the official IMDB storyline description calls The Northman an action-filled epic that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father’s murder. The story is based on the Scandinavian legend that inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet. In The Northman, Amleth, the Viking Prince, flees his home following an attack on his kin, and he spends the rest of his life devoted to the axiom: "I will avenge you, father. I will save you, mother. I will kill you, Fjölnir."
Watch the Trailer for The Northman
The first trailer for The Northman was released on December 20, 2021. Check out the video above for more insight into the story of this world.
Who’s in the Cast of The Northman?
Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood) is the aged prince Amleth. Focus Features offered a first look at Skarsgård and co. through four stills from the film, including a hulking, blood-covered prince Amleth.
Anya Taylor-Joy reteams with her director from The Witch for this Icelandic epic as the slave, Olga. When asked about working on the project, Joy said, “I am so proud to be a part of this project. Every moment on set, I’m proud, and I think we will be presenting the world with something like it genuinely hasn’t seen before, and I just feel so genuinely humbled to be a part of it.”
Ethan Hawke is set as the story’s sacrificial king, King Horwendil. It wouldn’t be much of a revenge tale without a tragedy to set right, and the untimely execution of Hawke’s Horwenwil is the inciting incident to his epic. Hawke has The Northman, Knives Out 2, Moon Knight, and The Black Phone all due out this year.
Nicole Kidman is Amleth’s mother, Queen Gudrún. In an interview with Collider about HBO’s The Undoing, Kidman praised Eggers as an auteur and said The Northman, “is Robert Eggers’ story and his vision. I hopefully bring something to that equation…”
Everyone’s favorite wickie, Willem Dafoe is working with Eggers on his second consecutive project and acting as Heimir the Fool. In an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Dafoe rained compliments on Eggers saying, “I think he’s a great talent and I love working with him so much, and he’s such a worker, and he’s so smart. He’s so passionate about history. It’s not a pretentious egotistic thing, but he’s really drawn to research and detail. He’s not–I don’t know, he just as a sixth sense.”
Kate Dickie (The Witch) rejoined Eggers for The Northman as well starring as Halldora the Pict.
Ralph Ineson (The Witch) is back with Eggers for The Northman in an uncredited role. When discussing the film with NME, Ineson heralded the film’s imagination and scale saying, “It’s an enormous movie, I saw a four-minute montage of some of the stuff they’d already shot, and I was really blown away. The marriage of Rob Eggers’ imagination and Viking Folklore…Jesus man.”
Rounding out the rest of the cast are Claes Bang (The Square) as Fjölnir, Björk as Seeress, and Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (Game of Thrones) as Thorfinnr. Gustav Lindh joined the project as a replacement for Bill Skarsgård after he had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts brought about by the worldwide pandemic.
Will The Northman be Streaming Online?
As of right now, The Northman is set for an exclusive theatrical release starting April 22. In a recent interview with Collider, Eggers expressed his hope that audiences feel safe returning to theaters to take in the works artists toil to produce on the big-screen, saying, “Look, my biggest hope is that people feel confident and comfortable going to movie theaters in April because this movie really deserves to be seen on the big screen because it quite literally is an epic and the scale of the landscapes and some of the action sequences…”