I don’t care what these Cinemacon guys are saying — Robert Eggers‘ The Northman (out in the spring of ’22) is a 10th Century Viking revenge saga, and is sure to be intense in the usual Eggers way. But as far as I can discern it’s not some bloody-ass, tons-of-blood, piles-of-bodies Braveheart deal. It’s about a Nordic prince looking to avenge his father’s death, yes, okay, but calm down, will ya?

From “More Or Less Hamlet,” posted o

“The Northman doesn’t seem to be any kind of ultra-violent Viking thing with axes and long ships and the worshipping of Odin. Because the basic bones of the script (cowritten by Eggers and Sjon) are based upon the Scandinavian legend of Amleth, which inspired William Shakespeare‘s Hamlet.

“Alexander Skarsgård plays Amleth, and Nicole Kidman (to whom Skarsgard’s rich asshole character was turbulently married in Big Little Lies) plays his mother, Queen Gudrun. Anya Taylor Joy‘s character is unnamed, but she’s probably playing Ophelia. Ethan Hawke is the King, Claes Bang is Feng (a character straight out of Amleth), Willem Dafoe as Heimir the Fool, Bjork is the Slav Witch, etc.

Last February Northman dp Jarin Blaschke (who also shot The Lighthouse and The Witch) told JoBlo’s Mike Sprague that the film will be “dark and unusually violent,” and that it will be “bigger than the others.”