Focus Features has released a new look as Alexander Skarsgård in The Northman. Released via Total Film magazine, the photo follows the first trailer for the new Viking movie from Robert Eggers, director of The Witch and The Lighthouse. Eggers also wrote the film with Icelandic novelist / poet Sjón. In it, Skarsgård plays Viking prince Amleth who watches his father (Ethan Hawke) die after being betrayed by his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang). Fjölnir takes Amleth’s mother (Nicole Kidman) captive. Amleth grows up repeating the mantra, “I will avenge you, Father. I will save you, Mother. I will kill you, Fjölnir.” The film’s cast includes Anya Taylor-Joy, Björk, and Willem Dafoe.
“The amount of discipline that Alex put into this role is crazy,” Eggers told Total Film. “He transformed his body more wildly than he did Tarzan. “
Set for release in April, The Northman previously suffered a two-week delay. In its official synopsis, Focus Features describes The Northman as “an action-filled epic that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father’s murder.”
Eggers previously explained how The Northman is different from his past films. “The scale is so huge and there are so many more locations and things that I could not do everything or know every prop myself,” Eggers told Collider in 2020. “That’s been a challenge with the new movie … 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 of the films. “
“There’s a lot more storyboarding,” he continued. “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 is not on a boat or “does not have a lot of extras. We’re storyboarding most of the film, which is taking a lot of time.”
What do you think? Are you excited about The Northman? Let us know in the comments. The Northman opens in theaters on April 22nd.
