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Robert Eggers' The Northman is a Viking revenge saga set in Iceland at the turn of the 10th century.
Potentially starring Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Bill Skarsgård, & Willem Dafoe.

After The Witch and The Lighthouse, color me intrigued.

Is this movie a Viking revenge saga?

I think it's a Viking revenge saga

I also think that they will all speak in the actual tongue of Vikings after Eggers and his brother spend the bulk of their prep time researching and consulting with linguists, and then they will build their own Vikings ship

More importantly though, will it star any Skarsgårds?

It will, though they will not be playing brothers, but Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero, respectively

The cast of Robert Eggers’ The Northman, a Viking revenge saga, include Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgård, Claes Bang, Willem Dafoe, and Björk. Set photos are starting to appear online.

Release date set for April 8, 2022

Also in case anyone missed it, Ralph Ineson was interviewed back in March and said there's a scene where Alexander Skarsgård

Spoiler

rips a man's throat out with his bare teeth

So, there's that.

therewillbeblus wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 12:31 amAlso in case anyone missed it, Ralph Ineson was interviewed back in March and said there's a scene where Alexander Skarsgård

Spoiler

rips a man's throat out with his bare teeth

The Walking Dead Season 5

This reminds me of a scene from The Walking Dead that always stuck with me: when Rick does the same thing to a man who is about to assault his son, Carl. It's brutal, but I've always really liked this scene for its portrayal of the near-animalistic lengths a father will go to protect his child. The parallel between that and a bite from a zombie (sorry, "Walker") also adds another layer. I no longer watch TWD, but maybe I should pick it back up.

To keep this on-topic, I am looking forward to this film. I liked The Witch and The Lighthouse even more so, and I'm interested to see how Eggers handles a non-horror movie.

therewillbeblus wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 12:31 am Release date set for April 8, 2022

I've seen a lot of people putting this in their early 2022 Oscar predictions (perhaps wishful thinking), so it's a bit weird to see a release date that not only takes it out of the running next year, but also kinda screws up its 2023 chances

The implication in this New Yorker profile is that the obsessively detailed Eggers didn’t get final cut on the film and was forced into reshoots after test screenings:

The first audiences for “The Northman”—a loose pre-telling of “Hamlet” (Shakespeare’s play is based on a Viking tale) involving longships, volcanoes, transcendental visions, and the singer Björk’s first cinematic role in seventeen years—reported feeling similarly flummoxed. Out of a hundred, the movie was scoring in the mid-sixties; the studio wanted more like seventy-five. “Some audience member wrote, ‘You need to have a master’s degree in Viking history to understand, like, anything in this movie,’ ” Eggers said. “Like, ahhh, fuck.”

…

After lunch, Eggers and I went for a walk and ended up sitting on a bench in Soho Square. Eggers praised New Regency but described the editing process as the most painful experience of his life. “Frankly, I don’t think I will do it again,” he said. “Even if it means, like, not making a film this big ever again. And, by the way, I’d like to make a film this big. I’d like to make one even bigger. But, without control, I don’t know. It’s too hard on my person.”

Also, sounds like his Nosferatu has been delayed if not canceled after Harry Styles pulled out

Perhaps we'll get a properly candid making of with the home video releases!

Re: Nosferatu; look, I like The Witch a great deal and The Lighthouse a lot less as time goes on, and I honestly don't know what else could be added that Werner Herzog hasn't already done with the 70s film.

I hope Ehrlich is right because the trailer I saw in front of Everything Everywhere All At Once today feels like they have no idea how to sell this. It could go the same way as The Witch and It Comes At Night, a very respectable opening weekend with a lousy Cinemascore from aggrieved audiences and a big drop thereafter.

Variety was not impressed but THR's take was mostly positive.

EDIT: Qualified recommendation from Roger Ebert.com

mfunk9786 wrote: Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:01 pm Is this movie a Viking revenge saga?

It’s a prequel/origin story/soft reboot of TRUE BLOOD ft. Vampire Eric Northman.

More lukewarm reviews from FFC's Walter Chaw and Slant's Mark Hanson who compares Northman unfavorably to Valhalla Rising.

Finch wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 1:28 pm Variety was not impressed but THR's take was mostly positive.

Heads up, you linked the Variety review twice so the THR review is missing.

D'oh! Fixed that now, thanks for alerting me.

This is pretty good if a huge step down from The Lighthouse’s unbelievably cathartic earthiness. The obvious antecedent is The Revenant (literally the characterization attributed to the main character at one point) in all its one-note viscerality and (over)emphasis on spirit quests and religious revenge cycles, which is fine, though I think it’s a little funny how obvious the seams in the fake single-shot fight sequences have become these days. Just incorporate a couple edits into the blocking; the scene will probably look better! It isn’t as though this deeply muted, washed-out, desaturated film, replete with the fussy-yet-dull one-point-perspective compositions of the “A24 horror” stereotype, couldn’t have used some visual staccato, though to its credit the film gets there in its dirtied-up climactic swordfights. As often, Anya Taylor-Joy is the best thing about the film (deftly navigating what is really a difficult role given the near-omnipresent threat of violent rape posed to her character), and [spoiler]the wailing agony of her final scene is the movie’s best actor-driven moment.[/spoiler] Skarsgard is unfortunately a lot flatter (and it doesn’t help that he is saddled with that ridiculous devotional mantra for much of this film - was that a studio imposition to help the audience remember the villain’s name?), but I am in awe enough of his freakish physical transformation to never want to get close to him in a dark alley. Overall a good experience, and definitely not one that requires a master’s in vikingology to find coherent (if like me you’ve played the most recent God of War, you might actually find the mythological stuff to be a bit repetitious and obvious).

On Facebook Paul Schrader compared this to Apocalypto and said that it's "more a terrific NatGeo supplement (...) than a reason to go to the movies." Lol.

While I agree it's the lesser of Eggers' three features so far, I think I still liked this more than Never Cursed did (and definitely more than Schrader and the friend I saw it with). In addition to Eggers' usual fanatical commitment to historical detail and visual precision, I think there's a subversive critique of the culture being depicted under the wolf skin of what could have easily been a 300-style androfascist fantasy. [spoiler]In addition to emphasizing in excruciating detail the mindlessly destructive horror of the early raid in Russia — in both content and location, very much reminiscent of Come and See, just set a millennia earlier — the way the "I will save you mother" portion of Amleth's guiding mantra turns out illustrates the narrow self-centeredness of his understanding of the world he stalks through.

I also think Eggers' depiction of Amleth's commitment to the vengeful warrior paradigm — well past the point where it makes any rational sense — is compelling in much the same way other depictions of blind cultural or religious fanaticism can be; I unexpectedly thought of Aronofsky's Noah while watching this, though where the biblical figure falters in carrying out extreme acts in service of the will of God, Amleth is even more maniacally committed to the requirements of his culture (leading to the strong scene with Taylor-Joy's character that Never Cursed mentions). [/spoiler] One of the defining characteristics of Eggers' first three films is the commitment to sensory indulgence, as with the delightfully tactile pleasures and horrors of The Lighthouse and the musical specificity of the dialogue in The VVitch; in this case, the pounding score and aggressively mixed sound design is a central part of the assaultive atmosphere of the film, so if you can't make it to see this one in a theater, I highly recommend cranking your sound system way up for the full experience.

Ultimately, I think Eggers's filmmaking continues to be both technically rigorous and extremely watchable, however one might respond to the historical, cultural, linguistic, and narrative specifics of the period he happens to be evoking. He's indicated that he doesn't have much interest in doing a contemporary film, and as interested as I'd be in seeing how that might look from him, I can't say I'm disappointed to have him continue to dig into whatever era and subculture catches his interest.

Side note: my screening over the weekend was pretty packed, and just as I was settling in to my seat, a couple walked in carrying exactly what you want to see during a violent Viking epic: a baby in a car seat. They sat two rows behind me, and so part of my brain spent the next 90+ minutes tensely waiting for the inevitable wailing interruption and accompanying spike in blood pressure, until finally — right as [spoiler]Amleth kills his pre-adolescent step brother with a sword[/spoiler] — the baby lets go with one short but perfectly timed bit of cooing laughter, which cracked up the whole theater. Didn't make a sound the rest of the screening; solid A- baby performance.

Never Cursed wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 4:01 pm ... I think it’s a little funny how obvious the seams in the fake single-shot fight sequences have become these days. Just incorporate a couple edits into the blocking; the scene will probably look better!

That sequence is supposedly a legit single take, for what it's worth