It's a continuing mystery that even Columbo would have trouble solving - why do Viking films mostly suck? After all, these guys are big unstoppable pillaging machines with groovy horned helmets and great big bushy beards who sailed about the Seven Seas while most other civilisations were still figuring out canoes. They had cool legends, cool weapons and a surely zeitgeisty 'Screw you, world' attitude to everyone else. But perhaps they're finally going to get the film tribute they deserve, as Menno Meyjes prepares to make Last Battle Dreamer with Ryan Phillippe, Sean Bean and Abbie Cornish lined up to star.
Set in the 7th century, it's about a Viking warrior called Thorfinn (Phillippe) who invades Britain with his battle-scarred older brother Hakon (Bean). No word on who Cornish is playing, but our guess is that she's a winsome British lass who manages to convince our boy that rape and pillage isn't the way to go, long-term. If we were then to guess what happens next, we'd speculate that Bean's character thinks his brother is wussing out and goes postal (postaler? Given the already pretty postal nature of Vikings?), leaving Phillippe to save the day. Or something. That's a total guess, so let's hope it's smarter than that.
Meyjes describes the film, due to shoot later this year, as "a love story written in fire and blood", which we're taking as proof of our plot speculation above. So there.
Cornish and Phillippe already starred together in the upcoming Stop Loss for Kimberley Pierce. Meyjes, meanwhile, is best known for 2002's Max, although he was also screenwriter on The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun. He's also recently finished The Martian Child, with Max star John Cusack again, and is currently wrapping post-production on Spanish bullfighter drama Manolete, starring Adrien Brody and Penelope Cruz.