The Northman Earns Official R Rating

Filmmaker Robert Eggers' previous two films, The Witch and The Lighthouse, both assuredly fit within the horror genre, though they didn't entirely embrace the more graphic elements of that realm, but with the upcoming The Northman, Eggers doesn't appear to be holding anything back. The MPA has officially bestowed The Northman an R rating for "strong bloody violence, some sexual content, and nudity." Given that the film is more a tale of vengeance than one of supernatural elements, it's easy to see how the upcoming adventure could earn such a rating. The Northman is landing in theaters on April 22nd.

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.

The intense subject matter of the upcoming film isn't entirely outside the realm of Eggers' filmmaking sensibilities, but he previously explained just what makes The Northman different from his last films.

"The scale is so huge and there are so many more locations and things that I couldn't do everything or know every prop myself," Eggers revealed to Collider in 2020. "That's been a challenge with the new movie...There's many locations in the film, so we were constantly going on scouts to find places or reassess places that we have found and we're building sets there. We're designing all these worlds, building these villages, we're making thousands of costumes and props, training the horses the things they'll need to do, designing the shots of the films."

He added, "There's a lot more storyboarding. Generally I only storyboard the scenes that have visual effects or animals and stunts, things where all the departments need to be on the same page for it to work out. But this movie there is rarely a scene that isn't on a boat or doesn't have a lot of extras. We're storyboarding most of the film, which is taking a lot of time."

The Northman lands in theaters on April 22nd.

Are you looking forward to the movie? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars! 

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