The Northman disappointingly bombed at the box office in its opening weekend, which begs questions about the future of unique, original epics of this nature. Backed by Universal’s Focus Features, The Northman is Robert Eggers’ first launch into studio filmmaking and mainstream Hollywood, with the director’s previous projects, The Witch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019), making waves on a much smaller scale as indie horrors. Unfortunately, The Northman’s opening weekend was a box office bomb, bringing in only $12 million domestically – $23 million in total globally – against Eggers’ quoted $70-90 million budget.
Comparatively, The Witch raked in $40 million and The Lighthouse earned $18 million at the box office, which may at first glance signal that The Northman is on the right track. However, The Witch and The Lighthouse’s performances were amazingly successful for indie films, as the projects were made with budgets of only $4 million and $11 million, respectively, with a much smaller theatrical distribution. As such, under a $90 million budget and large theatrical debut across 3,800 theaters, Eggers’ 2022 Viking epic has launched with a disappointing box office return despite The Northman’s primarily positive reviews.
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While such a box office bomb would have been expected at the height of the pandemic or, at least, before Spider-Man: No Way Home raked in over $1 billion, The Northman’s performance suggests that certain types of films don’t appeal as broadly to theatrical moviegoers, even when such a movie is built for a cinematic experience. Since the pandemic, the majority of films that have performed well at the box office have been IP-based blockbusters, franchise ventures, or indies with relatively smaller budgets, such as the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once. The Northman’s opening would have been an amazing feat had its budget been reminiscent of Eggers’ previous films, but it also would have limited the director’s creativity in exploring the massive scope of The Northman’s story. Consequently, The Northman’s box office bomb may be setting disappointing precedence about the lack of a market for big-budget indie-style projects.
Although The Northman’s marketing took up a significant portion of its budget, it also had a few notable quirks that may have contributed to its poor performance, such as posters in New York City subways failing to feature the film’s title. The big-budget sword-and-shield epic’s performance is also eerily reminiscent of the significant box office bomb of Ridley Scott’s $100 million-budgeted The Last Duel, which could have been used to predict The Northman opening. Both The Northman and The Last Duel were medieval historically-based tales curated for cinematic experiences with a few big names under acclaimed directors, with both opening poorly at theaters. While the effects of the films presumably wouldn’t have been as breathtaking without their financial studio backings, the theatrical performances of The Last Duel and The Northman suggest the market for this type of filmmaking may only be reserved for indies or small-budget scales in the future.
The opening weekend of The Northman may be relatively poor, but this doesn’t necessarily signal that Eggers’ Viking revenge film is a theatrical failure. While Focus Features maintains the opening weekend as a success, The Northman is estimated to need a $200 million gross to break even on its budget, which means it requires another $175 million in box office earnings internationally to be deemed a success. Since The Northman is only projected to bring in another $30-40 million domestically during its box office run, the Alexander Skarsgård-starring film will need a substantial international word-of-mouth campaign to break even. The chances of accomplishing this are slim, but doing so would mean cementing a place for original, creative films from auteurs like Robert Eggers in the competitive box office market.
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