Exhibitor Notes & Boxoffice Estimate - THE NORTHMAN (R)

Published Mar. 16, 2022

Synopsis

Distributor: Focus Features | Release Date: 4/22/22 | Run Time: 140 Minutes

Set in Iceland at the turn of the 10th century, the story centers on a Nordic prince who seeks revenge for the death of his father.

Screening Notes

This was 140 minutes of grunting, growling (yes, literally growling), snarling, vengeful scowls and a lot of death by sword. I was expecting something closer to Pathfinder (2007), The 13th Warrior (1999) or even Conan the Barbarian (1982) but the mildly ludicrous dream sequences, mystic otherworld ceremonies and weak script crushed this film from having any story depth…one disturbing note, your image of Nicole Kidman may forever be changed, she played one really-crazy-scary-evil mom.

Boxoffice Estimate

No doubt the History Channel’s Vikings and its Netflix spinoff, Vikings: Valhalla are incredibly popular…the first season of the Netflix series just dropped and generated over 194 million viewing hours in just its first 9 days of release. Also on Netflix, The Last Kingdom has been very successful and just dropped its final season (in its first week, season 5 generated 63 million hours). Viewers of these series are the core audience for The Northman, but I believe they will be disappointed...but they will love the 1-sheet!

Getting my arms around suitable theatrical comps for this one is really difficult. The most recent title that comes to mind is Pathfinder, but even that dates back to 2007. As mentioned, The 13th Warrior and Conan also strike similarities but are simply too dated to extract any useful info. With an expected 3,000+ runs (and Vikings in general super popular right now) very much working in its favor, my math lands at an opening weekend totaling $7.2M, with a range between $6.4M and $7.9M, and a total gross between $14M and $17M.

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