REVENGERS ASSEMBLE
When I first thought, ‘I want to make a Viking movie,’ I knew three things,” explains writer/director Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse), with the hint of a smile. “I knew it needs to take place mostly in Iceland, it needs to be a revenge story, and it needs to have a naked sword fight on a volcano.”
Well, that’s us sold. And so was star/ producer Alexander Skarsgård, who met with Eggers back when he’d made only The Witch. Their lunch was to discuss other possible projects, but all that was shelved when they discovered their shared passion for Norse mythology. Eggers had only immersed himself recently, after visiting Iceland with his wife, clinical psychologist Alexandra Shaker, who then used her spouse’s admiration for the VistaVision landscapes to bombard him with Icelandic Sagas and Old Norse literature. Skarsgård, meanwhile, had dreamt of making an epic Viking movie since he was a boy growing up in Stockholm. He’d bounced ideas with Danish producer Lars Knudsen (The Witch, Midsommar), and read Prose Edda, an Icelandic 13th-century textbook that is considered the most detailed source for modern knowledge of Norse mythology.
“We were trying to find the perfect story,” explains Skarsgård. “A lot of the Icelandic Sagas revolve around a family drama. It’s a lot about revenge. So we knew that we wanted something big and epic, but at the core of it, it had to be a family drama.”
“Alex mentioned that he and Lars had been trying to make a Viking movie for some time,” says Eggers. “I’m friends with Lars, but I had no idea! So then I was really excited. I said, ‘I could make a Viking movie.’ I hadn’t really thought about what that would be, but I was sure I could figure something out quickly.”
Quickly, in film terms, is a couple of years, which is what it took for Eggers and Icelandic author/poet/musician Sjón to fashion a screenplay. Eggers wrote the treatment and Sjón penned each draft, was premiering at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize awarded by a jury of international film journalists. American entertainment company Regency Enterprises were quick to strike a deal for .
