“The Northman” follows the gripping saga of Amleth, portrayed by Alexander Skarsgård, a Viking prince characterized as a “berserker” — a warrior driven by intense rage and capable of extreme violence, yet possessing a deep emotional core. Amleth embarks on a vengeful quest to avenge his father’s murder, encountering a stellar cast that includes Willem Dafoe, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, and even Björk along the way.

While there’s an abundance of Viking-themed content available, from the historical intrigue of “Vikings” on The History Channel to Netflix’s continuation “Vikings: Valhalla,” “The Northman” stands out as essential viewing. Skarsgård delivers a powerful performance, embodying Amleth with a fierce yet graceful presence that’s both alluring and terrifying. Just ask Queen Gudrún, his mother, played by Kidman—you’ve been forewarned!

In bringing this Viking tale to life, Eggers taps into a narrative that might seem familiar: a prince seeking vengeance against his murderous uncle. This storyline echoes through time, most famously in “The Lion King.” The name Amleth itself, when rearranged, hints at a renowned Shakespearean tragedy about familial betrayal.

In “The Northman,” Robert Eggers brought a Viking legend to screen life. You’d be forgiven if you feel like you’ve already seen stories about an angry prince on a mission of revenge against his uncle for killing his father. It’s the plot of “The Lion King,” for one example. The roots here go deep: unscramble the letters of Amleth’s name, and you’ll see the title of a certain Shakespeare play that made “hating your uncle” a foundational dynamic in literature.

Shakespeare is likely to have lifted “Hamlet” from an old source, the 12th century works of Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish historian who may have borrowed from something more archaic yet. “It’s probably an even older story,” Skarsgård told UPROXX. “So it’s probably from Iceland in the 10th century.”

It also took a while for Skarsgård himself to bring “The Northman” to life. He told Collider that he’d wanted to be a Viking on screen since he was a kid. In fact, he’d been working on a Viking film for years before meeting Eggers. “We were playing around with different ideas and reading the old Icelandic, the poetry, the old Icelandic sagas, and trying to figure out which story to base it on,” he said. When he met Eggers, he found the filmmaker had a love of those same stories. “We started talking about Norse mythology and Viking culture,” he said. “And that became, well, the starting point for this crazy journey.”

“The Northman” hit theaters in early 2022, when the world was still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The entertainment industry was in disarray; major studios like Warner Bros. had spent 2021 putting their films online the same day they hit theaters, meaning audiences had gotten used to being able to see things at home. There were waves of COVID still crashing over crowds with some regularity, and plenty of places were checking vaccine cards any time people gathered inside.

In other words, “The Northman” might have been doomed from the start. The film didn’t make its budget back in theaters, let alone turn a profit. It was rumored to have cost at least $70 million to make, and it barely squeaked past that mark at the global box office. Thankfully, the PVOD — Premium Video On Demand — market saved the day. Eggers told The Daily Beast that, mere weeks after a disappointing theatrical run, the film was a hit online. “When I see, on social media, people taking a photo of themselves watching ‘The Northman’ on their laptop and being excited about it, it draws a tear to my eye,” he said. “But it is what it is.”

After all, anyone watching the film at home would have missed out on the experience of seeing the most jarring scenes from “The Northman” — including that naked volcano fight – on a big screen. It’s a spectacle that deserved a presentation equal to what it offered. Barring a cinematic re-release, Viking fans have to do the best with what they have — and what they have is a berserker on demand from the comfort of home.