Just under a year ago, History’s Vikings came to an end after six season, but we are already being taken back into the world of Viking lore via the new Netflix spin-off series, Vikings: Valhalla, which revealed a first look at the streamer’s Tudum event. The series will be set 100 years after Vikings, this new series will see Sam Corlett playing the famous Viking explorer Leif Ericsson, who supposedly trekked across the seas to America centuries before Christopher Columbus set foot on the land of the free.
This is a new direction after Vikings ended its run earlier this year. The new series comes from Vikings creator Michael Hirst, and the new trailer shows that we can expect the same kind of action packed thrills that the flagship show delivered with a whole new group of warriors, rulers and explorers with their own mark to make on the evolving world. Other Vikings chronicled in the series includes Freydis Eriksdotter (Frida Gustavsson) Harald Hardrada (Leo Suter), and the Norman King William the Conqueror, a descendant of Rollo (Clive Standen).
The huge cast also includes Laura Berlin as Emma of Normandy, Bradley Freegard as the Danish King Canute, Johannes Haukur J&óhannesson as Harald’s half-brother Olaf; David Oakes as Earl Godwin, Caroline Henderson as the Kattegat Jarl Haakon, Pollyanna McIntosh as Aelfgifu, and Asbjorn Krogh Nissen as Jarl K&åre.
While many fans have already been mourning the loss of Ragnar in the spin-off, the fan-favorite lead in the original series, the new series will have a number of connections to the flagship show, weaving in the familiar locations, legacies and mythology of Vikings. Additionally, there will be some familiar faces returning for the new series, such as John Kavanagh who will reprise his role as the Seer in the Netflix series.
When the spin-off series was announced, creator Hirst offered some insight into how the new chapter in the saga would equal the scope of Vikings, but there would be some changes. “It couldn’t be on a greater scale than the final episodes of my Vikings,” Hirst explained. “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.”
You’ve been waiting patiently and the wait is over!
Get your first look at Vikings: Valhalla courtesy of @NetflixGeekedpic.twitter.com/9XW19sTH2b
— Netflix (@netflix) June 7, 2021
Netflix released a short behind the scenes clip of the series as part of their Geeked event back in July, which gave fans a very brief look at what they could expect from the follow up, and the latest trailer certainly hits home Hirst’s comments that this is the Vikings fans know and love, and appears to be more than up to the job of carrying the legacy forward while hooking in a new audience when it arrives next year. Meanwhile, there’s lots of other big news coming out of Netflix’s TUDUM event.