If you were a fan of Michael Hirsch’s Vikings series and wished the series had continued in some way, I’ve got some great news to share, Netflix has made a new Vikings series, Vikings: Valhalla, that takes place one hundred years later and it starts streaming February 25th. Created by Jeb Stuart, the new series follows the exploits and adventures of some of the most notable (and infamous) names in Norse history. Chief among them is revered Viking ruler Harald Hardrada (Leo Suter), along with the explorer Leif Eriksson (Sam Corlett) and Old Norse religious leader Freydis Eriksdotter (Frida Gustavsson), the son and daughter of Vikings’ Erik the Red. Vikings: Valhalla also stars Bradley Freegard (King Canute), Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (Olaf Haraldsson), Caroline Henderson (Jarl Haakon), Laura Berlin (Emma of Normandy), David Oakes (Earl of Godwin), Louis Davison (Prince Edmund), Bosco Hogan (King Aethelred II), Asbjørn Krogh Nissen (Jarl Kåre), Pollyanna McIntosh (Aelfgifu of Northampton), and Soren Pilmark (King Sweyn Forkbeard).
Shortly after watching the first five episodes (which are fast moving and loaded with action), I got to speak with Jeb Stuart about making the series. During the interview he talked about how the series happened, studying history to find the things he wanted to bring into the show, why he started the series with the St. Brice's Day Massacre, the way the pacing on Valhalla is different from Vikings, how he made huge scale action on a TV budget, his plans for future seasons, why each season is eight episodes, how Season 2 is different from Season 1, and more. In addition, he talked about when he realized Die Hard (which he wrote) was going to be such a special movie and avoided talking about writing the Netflix Assassin's Creed series except to say he agreed with my opinion that it will work better on the small screen where you can spend more time diving into the mythology and explore the world.
Watch what he had to say in the player above or you can read the full transcript below.
COLLIDER: I have a million questions for you. Let's start with the most important thing. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?
JEB STUART: Absolutely, it's a Christmas movie.
Okay.
STUART: Yeah, absolutely. What's so funny is 30 years ago or 25 years ago, it might have been not a Christmas movie, I mean Christmas movie, but if you keep switching your story around people will continue to debate and they'll keep watching it at Christmas time.
It is crazy that your first credited screenplay was Die Hard, because truthfully, it's one of the best villains in Hollywood history. It's such a phenomenal movie. At what point did you realize this was an incredibly special movie?
STUART: That's a good question. The first time I saw it, the first time I saw dailies, and the first time... Everybody needed to make that movie. I mean, the whole Die Hard thing is a whole other conversation. I would love to talk to you about the details about that, but I'm...
Believe me when I say at another point I would love to have a more in depth conversation also about the Fugitive and a whole bunch of other movies.
STUART: Anytime.
I've seen the first five episodes of Vikings: Valhalla. I want to give you a congratulations. I watched all of the original Vikings. I'm a fan of the show and I thought these episodes were so well done. I'm curious, how did you actually get involved? Was it Netflix coming to you? Did you go to Netflix? How did this thing germinate?
STUART: That's a really good question. First of all, I was a fan also. It means a lot as a fan of Vikings to hear you say that you found Valhalla, the transition between these two, because they're two different animals, totally. But Morgan O'Sullivan, who was an executive producer on Vikings and he'd worked with Michael Hurst, brought me in and called me up. I knew Michael, we had developed a show together, but Michael wasn't really part of that at the time. Morgan just said look, we're thinking about continuing the story. We don't have anything. We don't really know what we want to do? And I said I don't want to write season 7 of Michael's show. It's run its course as far as that's concerned. Fabulous show, iconic great characters, the action's terrific, so let me putter around in history for a little bit and see if there's a place to come in.
I did a lot of research. I got my Viking history up to the point where I could be stupid. Then I found the St. Brice's Day Massacre, which it's not a bank holiday in England. You don't really celebrate those genocides, but I thought wow. For me that had some cultural resonance and relevance for me that I felt like you could start a story because we had pagan Vikings at this time and Christian Vikings. And just like in our culture you got the Republicans and Democrats, but when you go to war when there's a 9/11, suddenly you forget your ideology you become American and you go out, and you're one people. Inadvertently King Aethelred gave King Cnut, and we gave the Vikings a reason to stop killing each other over religious differences and become Viking again, and I thought that's a very cool place to start a new series.
Then by bringing in Freydis and Leif from Greenland I had characters that I could bring in and suddenly bring an audience up to speed 150 years later. Okay. What's it like bringing two people in who are outside of that Viking culture from their great, great, great grandparents day? So that was exciting for me. When I got excited then they let me go, good place to go hunting.
When you went into Netflix and the thing's going, did they say to you, “Hey, what's your idea for three seasons? What's your idea for five seasons?” Because obviously they are not looking at this as a one and done kind of a thing. Vikings is incredibly popular around the world.
STUART: Well, I wasn't going to give them a chance to say what's your idea. I told them what the idea was because I figured out if I'm going to tell this story we got to get to the new world because we know that, and there's some certain things. Harold Segerson has an incredible journey of his own, we know that. We know a lot about how the Viking age moved through the 11th century and goes to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and William the Conqueror, and all of those type of things which has incredible Viking roots. William the Conqueror is a great, great, great grandson of Rollo. So there's all of this, has this nice, wonderful symmetry to it if you can start to bring it together.
So, to your point, I said here's what the first season is. Here's what I'd love for season two. Here's where we would take the story in success into a future area. I'm hoping that people like Valhalla because I love this journey, and I'd sure love to have an opportunity to complete it.
Trust me when I say, I've watched all of Vikings. There is no way fans of that show are not going to respond to this one. How many episodes is season 1? I know that it's eight episodes. Do you consider those eight season 1 and then the next eight season 2? How does this work?
STUART: Yeah. That's what it'll be. It'll be that classic Netflix eight type of thing. At least it is with my show.
Sure.
STUART: And season 2 will have a different vibe to it. The same characters moving through the story, progresses linearly on that path, but the characters will move and can change, and things like that. But I see it as a continuing story, but at the same time, each season has its own identity to it. When we get to season 2 hopefully we'll talk again and you'll say, "Oh, I see exactly what you mean."
Pardon me for not knowing, but Netflix has been a little bit mysterious. Have you wrapped on season 2? Where are you in the production?
STUART: Yes. We've wrapped season 2. I'm in editorial on season 2.
So, the plan is for eight episode seasons, that's what the number is. How did you guys decide? Because some shows are six, some shows are 13 and 10. How did you guys decide on the eight episodes per season?
STUART: I can't answer that question. I think that that may have come down from high and landed on me. Eight is a really good... It doesn't sound like a lot, but it really has... What I can accomplish in eight episodes it's going to feel very weighty. I know you've seen the first five, but the last three have their own character as well. Could you do it with 10? Yeah. Can you do it with 27? No. It has the nice feel to it in terms of the weight.
Well, one of the things about the five episodes that I saw is it is incredibly fast moving.
STUART: Yeah.
I feel like the show, it's bigger and has more action than the previous Vikings. I'm curious, did Netflix say to you, when you're writing, we really want this to be action packed? Did they give you some guidelines or mandates of what they were looking for with this Viking show?
STUART: You know, Steven, when we went around and pitched it, I made that distinction at the beginning. And Michael Hurst was in the room at that time too and Michael writes great action, but we write totally differently. I mean, it's as you said, the pacing is different on Valhalla than it is from Vikings. I made that a part of the pitch. I just said look, I can't write like this guy. I come from a feature action world where I really love the pace, and I think the audience that is in the action world loves smart shows that just move characters in and you're having to think. You're not three steps ahead of the audience, but you're not letting the audience say, "Oh man, I got this. I know exactly what's going to happen here."
I hate those type of shows. I don't have patience for those type of shows. That's my goal every time is to come away saying, "Wow, what happens next?" As opposed to, "I'm ahead of this show." I don't want that. That's a hard place to get. But I'm glad you picked up on the pacing because that's one of the big differences between the two, Vikings and Valhalla.
What did the producers say when you said to them, "So, listen, we're going to have a long bridge that's going to go into London and it's going to have a crap ton of action on it.” What are the producers saying, the money people, when you're telling them what you're looking at doing in season one?
STUART: They went crazy. You're asking all the right questions and I, unfortunately, I can't share any of those comments with you because they're insane. But, the fact is the great thing about my Irish crew, Steve, is that they can do anything. They can do anything. The head space is there and you challenge them with this, with the ideas like the London bridge, and they're like, "How do we solve that?" So what we solved is we built four bridges. We think ahead.
The one thing, from my background, is because I've come in and done lots of production rewrite work on big features, and the money's spent, and when you come in and rewrite something where the money's already spent, you got to be smart about how you do it. And time really helps. So if you give crafts people time, really talented people, they can do anything and they can do it for the budgets that you're talking about. But you got to not say it's impossible. You got to say how do we do this, and how do we do it for the budget? How do we make it look 10 times bigger than our budget?
Great thing about Ireland and the Irish crew was they had already been doing that. They had been delivering featured style shows on I Love Lucy budgets. It's incredible what they had been able to do. You're a connoisseur of this area, so when you look at something you can say I know what the VFX is and what the actual is and what the practical is. You need somehow to be able to orchestrate all that so that you can do it, and you stay focused on the character so it's something, because we're not in the Marvel universe, we're not going to blow up this planet. We have to make it very real.
I'm already out of time, but I got to ask you one other question. I am so curious about Assassin's Creed, just because I have to ask. Because it's for me, I don't think the movies were the way to go with that property. I think it's a series and there's so much mythology and depth to that world. There's so much you can do. Can you tease people how it's coming along and what you're looking to do with it?
STUART: I can't tease you at all, but I can have another conversation another time. Okay. Is that a tease enough?
Yeah.
STUART: Let me just put this way. I totally agree with everything you said, everything you said. We'll have a follow up conversation on AC at some point.