Ralph Glorioso
Vikings: Valhalla is set to arrive on Netflix shores soon, with eight episodes of Season 1 dropping on February 25th, 2022. The spin-off of the History Channel series created by Michael Hirst, Vikings, will be produced by the same company, MGM Productions.
Michael Hirst had this to say when asked whether Vikings: Valhalla will be as epic as the original:
“It couldn’t be on a greater scale than the final episodes of my Vikings. Because the armies and the big battles we had… You really can’t get much bigger than that, actually. But what can I say? It is being made in the same places, a lot of it. We go back to Kattegat. That, of course, is the spiritual home of the Vikings. But it’s a changed Kattegat. It’s an established… It’s one of the biggest ports really, trading ports in Europe. It’s grown in size and significance.The King of England has become a Viking. The Vikings have overrun most of England and they own Normandy.”
The amazing action screenwriter Jeb Stuart, who wrote blockbusters such as Die Hard and The Fugitive, is writing the series. Michael Hirst talked about how Jeb Stuart weaved connections from the original Vikings to the new spin-off, which is set over a century later:
“What Jeb does actually is he pays attention to the mythology of the Vikings. So whenever they meet in the great hall in Kattegat, and of course they talk about the great eras who used to sit in the same hall at the same table, and they were Ragnar Lothbrok, Lagertha, and Bjorn Ironside, and Ivar the Boneless, who are now mythic characters even within the show, even within Vikings: Valhalla. That’s a really great connection and effect. It gives ready-made histories to the new show. So you don’t need to know who Ragnar is to watch the new show. But it enriches the show and it hopefully will make people go back and find out, ‘Well who are these people they keep talking about? Was Ragnar so great? Why are these people mythic characters?’ So everything connects in a useful, and interesting, and fascinating way.”
Watch the first look trailer here:
