Universal Studios have acquired the rights to a film Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur has been working on for the past six years, taking over from Working Title. Known as Vikingr, the film will be set in Iceland and feature scenes from the Icelandic Sagas.
The film is “based on the classic tales deriving from the legendary Icelandic Sagas, which document larger-than-life heroes, adventures and battles of early Nordic settlers, as well as daily life in the Viking age. Vikingr offers a fresh look at Viking culture that is both intimate and epic,” hollywoodreporter.com writes.
Icelandic actor and writer Ólafur Egill Egilsson is working on the screenplay with Baltasar. According to ruv.is, other preparations include a Viking village set up as a shooting location near Höfn in Southeast Iceland four years ago.
Baltasar’s recent Hollywood blockbusters Contraband (2012), the English-language remake of Icelandic director Óskar Jónasson’s thriller Reykjavík-Rotterdam (2008), and action film 2 Guns (2013) have furthered his reputation in the U.S. film industry.
The filmmaker also earned much critical acclaim for his latest film to be released in Icelandic, The Deep (2012), featuring the heroic tale of a sea accident survivor off Vestmannaeyjar.
Baltasar is currently in postproduction on mountaineering drama Everest about an accident that occurred during an expedition on the mountain in 1996, also produced by Universal and Working Title, along with Cross Creek Pictures.
Baltasar’s name has come up in relation with a movie about the Reykjavík Summit in 1986, in which Michael Douglas is set to portray Ronald Reagan.
