Posted in: Focus Features, Movies | Tagged: Focus Features, movies, the northman

The Northman: Robert Eggers On Test Screening Reactions Plus a Poster

In January 2015, attendees of the Sundance Film Festival watched a very special movie make its debut, The VVitch. The movie got buzz almost immediately for its atmospheric tension from director Robert Eggers, its commitment to historical accuracy while telling the tale of a witch and goat that may or may not be Satan and a revelatory performance from an at the time unknown actress named Anya Taylor-Joy. Eggers went on to win the directing award at the festival that year, and the movie was picked up by A24 and released a year later to critical and commercial acclaim. Since then, Eggers has also released the absolutely fantastic The Lighthouse, which is just as insane as The VVitchi and also got a ton of critical praise. However, Eggers films are not easy watches by any means. He doesn't hold his audiences' hands, which means that many people find his films challenging to follow or understand. The New Yorker recently did a profile on Eggers, and he talked about one of the test screenings he did got his new film, The Northman.

"Some audience member wrote, 'You need to have a master's degree in Viking history to understand, like, anything in this movie,' " Eggers said. "Like, ahhh, fuck."

So it sounds like this movie could have a rather narrow scope in terms of audience appeal, and for low-budget films like The VVitch and The Lighthouse [budgets of $4 million and $11 million, respectively], a narrow scope isn't an issue. However, The Northman already had a much larger budget, $65 million, and that was before a massive wrench of COVID-19 got thrown into things and made the budget even bigger.

"We had kind of an expensive, arty—but commercial—but arty, but commercial, like, Viking movie. . . . Now everyone is kind of, like, 'If this isn't "Gladiator" or "Braveheart," we're fucked.' And the thing is: it isn't," Eggers said. "It has aspects of that, for sure. But my best intention of doing 'Gladiator' or 'Braveheart' is still . . ." He let the sentence hang. "Weirder."

So to say that there is a lot hanging on this movie would be a minor understatement. Perhaps that is why there is such a focus on test screenings and trying to get audience reactions up through the editing process described in this profile. It's really interesting getting a look into what the process is for a creative who has a vision and is trying to make that vision more accessible because it has to be. From what it sounds like, Focus Features was trying to walk the line of bringing The Northman to a wider audience while also keeping Eggers's vision intact.

"Isn't that great?" Eggers said, on the phone that afternoon. We met the following week in Soho. Eggers ate a lamb thali and asked if he seemed like a different person. A weight was gone. "I think I've delivered the most entertaining version," he said. "The most entertaining version is not necessarily something I'm usually striving for. But it was here, you know, and it happened."

It sounds like he's okay with how everything turned out. A director taking on his third major project with a budget over six times bigger than the previous project would be a challenge for anyone, but Eggers had to do it with COVID-19 making everything that much harder. It's something that could have brought veteran directors with dozens of movies under their belt to their knees. The rest of the profile is worth checking out if you're interested in Eggers's work, and Focus Features has released a new poster.

From visionary director Robert Eggers comes THE NORTHMAN, an action-filled epic that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father's murder. With an all-star cast that includes Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, and Willem Dafoe. It will be released on April 22, 2022.

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