Alexander Skarsgård is a Viking prince obsessed with revenge in The Northman trailer

The first trailer for Robert Eggers’ The Northman is here. The epic film tells the story of a son’s quest for vengeance after his father, a Viking king, is killed by a rival Viking faction.

Alexander Skarsgård stars as the adult version of the boy, while Ethan Hawke and Nicole Kidman play his parents. Anya Taylor Joy is the prince’s unlikely ally, who tells him she has the “cunning to break men’s minds.” The movie also stars Claes Bang, Björk, and Willem Dafoe.

The trailer paints a bleak and dark life for the Vikings, where Skarsgård seems to spend a lot of the film shirtless and covered in dirt and blood. Throughout the footage, he repeats his vow to “avenge” his father, “save” his mother, and to “kill” the man who destroyed his family. (Weirdly, this comes close to matching the backstory for Skarsgård’s True Blood character, a former Viking vampire named… Eric Northman.)

Eggers’s previous films, The Witch and The Lighthouse, were both horror films, and The Northman is definitely his highest budget outing yet. He also co-wrote the screenplay for this film with the poet Sjón, a frequent Björk collaborator. The Northman is scheduled to hit theaters on April 22, 2022.

Skarsgård has had a busy year. He joined Succession for season three, and the season finale set things up for him to be an even more central member of the cast going forward. He also starred in Godzilla vs. Kong, and appeared in Rebecca Hall’s Passing. The actor also starred in the Paramount+ adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand.

Joy has also been keeping busy. In September she won an Emmy for her work in Netflix’s The Queen Gambit. She starred in this year’s Last Night In Soho, and will voice Princess Peach in next year’s Super Mario movie. She’s also part of the all-star cast for David O. Russell’s mystery film.