The Northman is getting plaudits from everyone who has seen it. Sitting around 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, while any Outposters that have seen it report back that it is, indeed, spectacular.
Robert Eggers’ $70 million Viking revenge epic does contain one scene that has caused a comment though. In the climax, Alexander Skarsgård (Zoolander, True Blood) and Claes Bang (Netflix and the BBC’s Dracula) fight on top of an erupting volcano. They are both completely naked, with the genitals on display created by CGI. Imagine that job for a digital effects artist? All-day, every day, for weeks staring at cocks. There is a punchline here, but we are not going to make it.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Eggers admitted that he had his concerns over the climax. Was it the CGI bits and bobs flopping around that worried him? Not at all. He says:
“To be totally frank, I didn’t know that this quarry was really going to look good. We were worried that it was not going to look like a volcano. I remember saying to Sjón, my Icelandic co-writer, ‘Is this a stupid American ending?’ And he said, ‘It could be, but we’ll make sure that it’s not.’
After we did a couple takes, Mark Huffam, one of the producers, came up to me and he was like, ‘To be honest, I didn’t think it was going to work, but this looks good.’”
Suffice to say it worked out well for everyone in the end, capping off The Northman in spectacular style, as well as bringing Amleth’s quest to a definitive conclusion.
The Northman is out now in theaters. Universal movies debut on Peacock first, so could be available on that service around June 6th.
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