Robert Eggers' visceral Viking epic The Northman is such a vanishingly rare commodity in the present moment — a brilliant blockbuster, crafted with the confident verve of a stylish auteur three movies deep into his career — that marketers handling it across the globe have no idea what to do with it. A production error that quickly went viral saw posters for the film plastered onto walls in the New York subway without a title, leaving commuters pondering whether it was Waterworld 2, “something Game of Thrones-y,” or simply about “Vikings going through a really tough time” — to be fair, not too far from the mark.
It's not as though Eggers is too kooky or outré to market effectively. The Lighthouse, from its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 through to its cinematic debut just prior to the advent of The Great Lurgy, benefited from an eye-catching, gorgeously compelling campaign, as did his debut, The Witch (also known as The VVitch). Both made back their budgets. Yes, the rigmarole of promoting a $70 million blockbuster is going to be distinct from that of a festival-premiering indie, but why put so much money into a project if you're, as predicted, going to let it flop?
This is all a crying shame, because The Northman itself is exactly the shot in the arm Hollywood presently needs, the epitome of cinema as spectacle, epic in scope, length, form and style. It tells the story of Amleth, a Viking prince who gets torn from his rightful place in the kingdom but is destined to return and continue his royal bloodline (cue comparisons with The Lion King slash Hamlet – Amleth? Geddit?).
The story opens when, emerging from a sacred cave in which they dropped Viking Acid during an ancient ritual, Amleth's dad (played by an ever-committed, handsomely shaggy Ethan Hawke) is stabbed to bits by court rebels at the command of his brother, Fjölnir (Claes Bangs, who lives up to his surname). Amleth barely escapes but vows to return, repeating to himself an absolute earworm of a mantra as he paddles out towards the roaring sea: I will avenge you father. I will save you mother. I will kill you Fjölnir.
And so, epilogue out of the way, our revenge tale is set. Cut to however many years later and first and foremost, the older Amleth, now played by Alexander Skarsgård, boasts enormous traps and viceps. Having lost his way in the preceding years, he's now part of a marauding gang of animalistic barbarians who spend their days raping and pillaging, burning down thatched halls stuffed with babies and tots, as was presumably the done thing at the time.
A serendipitous run in with Björk (played by Björk) reminds him of his sworn oath — you know, the whole avenging his dad, saving his mum, killing his uncle thing — and sets him back on the righteous path. Branded with a hot iron poker, he smuggles himself onto a slave ship headed, helpfully, for Fjölnir's farmstead. The rest is better enjoyed blind. But rest assured: it is absolutely glorious, and the best ticket you will spend your money on this year so far.
I was recently researching for another GQ piece on Nicolas Cage's new film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and it struck me that Cage's cult classic identa-swap action flick, Face/Off, cost a staggering $80 million to make. In 1997. That isn't entirely out of the norm for Hollywood in the present moment, where even franchise outliers like Venom are given nine-figure budgets. But for something entirely unique, and not derived from an existing property? No way. Not now. Almost impossible.
Franchise filmmaking is nothing new, but even thirty years ago, 14 of the 20 highest grossing movies of the year were original ideas; in Hollywood today, titles like The Northman are creatively marooned. If you want a truly disastrous litmus test for the current State of Things, simply cast your eyes to movie listings at any multiplex in the country across recent weeks. These are the box office rankings for the past weekend: first is Fantastic Beasts 3, a languid threequel — well, sort of an elevenquel, if you rightly count the preceding Harry Potter flicks. Second, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the sequel to a video game adaptation. Fourth: Morbius, on which we will say no more. The Batman comes in at fifth, the ongoing celebration of which in itself being a sorry indictment of contemporary big-budget moviemaking, given its "formal ingenuity" is born of its Seven derivations. Ambulance, a warmly received Michael Bay production — and the sole non-IP, live-action blockbuster to rank — took just shy of ninety grand.
This is now it: franchise movie after franchise movie. Our cultural calendars are staggered and demarcated by the arrival of MCU instalments, be it on Disney Plus or in cinemas. Our nostalgia is milked within an inch of its worth by cynical media conglomerates wringing us for a lazy buck. Commercial gain has forever been the central ambition of studio executives, but never so to the detriment of art, of a culture we can be proud of fuelling, as in the present epoch.
The Northman, then, is representative of what blockbuster cinema still has the potential to offer, if only we demand it: formal ingenuity, and a story which challenges but remains digestible on a Sunday afternoon. Great performances, and shot composition beyond convention. Something, anything that doesn't follow letter-for-letter, line-by-line, an existing blueprint. Something new.
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