Spurred by the unprecedented discovery of a burial ship in Norway, the documentary Vikings: The Lost Kingdom aims to tell the true story of the Viking civilization and people, which feeds many fantasies in the contemporary popular imagination. This film achieves its goal through a skilful mix of science, history and entertainment, as well as strong international partnerships.
Gaëlle Guyader, producer at ZED, and Charlotte Tachet, the company's director of distribution and acquisitions, take us behind the scenes of the financing and distribution of this ambitious co-production.
How did the Vikings: The Lost Kingdom project come about? Was the idea already in the works before the unprecedented discovery of a Viking burial ship in Norway in 2018?
Gaëlle Guyader: During its research, ZED's development division came across an article in a Norwegian newspaper about the discovery of a probable Viking burial ship footprint by archaeologists at NIKU (the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research). It turned out to be one of the largest ship graves unearthed in the last hundred years.
The uniqueness of this discovery prompted ZED's producers to immediately contact the excavation site team and offer them an exclusive documentary. We obtained privileged access to follow the excavations on the Gjellestad site and the concomitant scientific analyses, and we then set up a Franco-Norwegian team to be able to react to the different stages of the dig, and to remain in close contact with the scientists in charge of the site. Thanks to this collaboration with Norway, we were able to put together a credible and solid production, both editorially and in terms of its feasibility. Once the contacts were established, we were able to launch the film. From development to delivery, the film took three years to produce.
The documentary was produced and is distributed by ZED, why did you choose to focus on this subject? How did you bring together the different partners around this ambitious project?
GG: Although Vikings have always been an iconic archetype, we have been experiencing a Viking renaissance in recent years as these intrepid explorers have inspired a multitude of stories and appealed to a wide audience. This solid trend in our entertainment and pop culture has been proven by the critical and commercial success of TV series such as Vikings and The Last Kingdom, but their adventures, mythology, quest for land, and bloody conflicts have also found great visibility in the gaming industry with Lords Of The Fallen, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, and more recently Assassin's Creed Valhalla and God Of War.
More than ever, Viking culture offers great opportunities for storytelling, engagement, and entertainment. In the wake of this growing global popularity, the strength of our film lies in the fact that it fuels the public's curiosity about these Norse warriors by grounding their story in reality: Who were they? How did they really live? Surpassing fiction, we explore the true history of these people, going beyond pop culture and the collective imagination to reveal a civilization of great richness. Our film is also distinguished by its ambition: to explore a historical subject through scientific advances, following an archaeological breakthrough.
These scientific and archaeological discoveries shed new light on what we knew about the Vikings. What angle have you adopted to make these discoveries accessible?
GG: With the help of historians and leading specialists of the Viking era, this film presents, through fictionalized reconstructions, what life might have been like for these people. Both a scientific and historical investigation, Vikings: The Lost Kingdom is an unprecedented journey into the great history of Viking civilization, thanks to exclusive access and an archaeological excavation leading to a discovery unprecedented in the last hundred years.
The extensive period dedicated to the project's development allowed us to establish a financing plan commensurate with the project's ambition, including a co-production with CuriosityStream in the US and a co-production with Mechanix Films in Norway.
Our Norwegian co-producer facilitated our contacts with re-enactment centers and festivals celebrating Viking events. We were able to film on board drakkars during an event and set up the filming of scenes of everyday life and funeral rituals in a specially designed village with actors, all under the supervision of Viking era specialists.
What was your strategy for distributing the program internationally?
Charlotte Tachet : The search for additional international funding was essential for the successful completion of the project. The requirements of France 5's Science Grand Format slot and the internationally recognized production know-how of the ZED teams enabled us to offer our international partners a film with many assets: a skillful mix of science and history that has made this channel a success in France and abroad, the promise of strong reconstructions (non-dialogue evocations), a meticulous shoot, and exclusive access to new discoveries with a dynamic and modern narrative, an international cast, and original archaeological research as a common thread throughout the film. All the ingredients were there to set up ambitious partnerships!
Hence, very early in the development, we presented the project to CuriosityStream, which has been a loyal partner of ZED since our very first projects together, the Monuments sacrés and Living Universe series. CuriosityStream was very excited about the project and its approach, and came onboard as a co-producer.
It seemed interesting to pitch the project to our partners in Scandinavia, where this story particularly resonates. This was a challenge because many fiction and documentary productions about Vikings already exist. The project's original angle around the discovery of the Gjellestad burial ship allowed us to convince SVT, NRK, and VIASAT to pre-buy. This was a great sign of confidence for our teams. Ceska TV and YLE also joined us later, and recently the Australian channel SBS bought the film, in its original 90-minute version, as well as RTS, which acquired the 52-minute version.
We produced a 90-minute version for France 5, a two 45-minute episode version for CuriosityStream, and a 52-minute version for the international market, all available in 4K.
Vikings: The Lost Kingdom continues to surprise and travel... How do you see the continuation of its international journey?
CT: The success of series such as Vikings: Valhalla on Netflix, and its prequel on History Channel, which are hugely popular, has reinforced the public's attraction to this theme. We wanted to offer an ambitious film that would appeal to a wide audience, both informed or unfamiliar with the subject, young and old. Through our various partners, we've covered about fifty countries to date, and we hope to continue to expand the film's distribution, particularly in Asia where we have ongoing interests, as well as in Southern Europe (Spain, Italy...) and Germany.
Bolstered by this experience, we have recently committed ourselves to another project based on Vikings, handling distribution: Vikings, la saga des femmes, led by two talented producers, Sophie Parrault from Little Big Story (France) and Lisa Wahlbom from Nordic Eye Production (Sweden). This ambitious project, directed by Thomas Cirotteau (Lady Sapiens) is also produced for France Télévisions's Science Grand Format slot, with the Histoire TV channel, in co-production with Ubisoft. We launched the search for pre-buys a few weeks ago and already count among our international partners the Scandinavian SVT, NRK, and DR TV channels, and have received promising interest from the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia. The film will be delivered in early 2025.
