Historical dramas have made fighting for a crown look like a particularly dangerous career choice. Winning a battle rarely settles anything when relatives, allies, and neighboring rulers all have their own ideas about who should inherit the throne. For audiences who spent years following Vikings, that uncertainty was a huge part of the attraction. A victory could change someone’s fortunes without making them any safer.
Michael Hirst helped make those struggles compelling by giving the people behind them ambitions that extended beyond the battlefield. The family conflicts could be as consequential as an invading army, especially when loyalty to a ruler collided with loyalty to a spouse or child. His next Norse drama puts a married couple at the center of that fight, with their pursuit of power threatening to draw an entire region into conflict.
Prime Video’s Bloodaxe will premiere on January 20, 2027, with all eight episodes of its first season arriving together. The date was revealed during a panel at New York Comic Con featuring Jessica Madsen and Levi Miller, which also debuted the series’ first teaser trailer and teaser key art. The drama will launch exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories. A second season has already been ordered and is currently in Ireland production, giving viewers another chapter to anticipate before the first begins.
‘Bloodaxe’ Follows a Couple Fighting for the Throne of Norway
The series chronicles the rise of Erik Bloodaxe, played by Xavier Molyneux, and his wife Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, played by Madsen. Their struggle for Norway’s throne unfolds amid rival claimants and betrayals that make holding power as difficult as acquiring it. The conflict also reaches beyond Norway, drawing in Scandinavian kings and a powerful English ruler. That puts the couple’s ambitions within a much larger contest, where a neighboring monarch’s intervention could change everything. Putting Erik and Gunnhild at the center gives the series a relationship to build around alongside its battles.
A shared claim to power creates plenty of reasons for a couple to work together, but it also gives their decisions consequences for an entire kingdom. How the show develops that partnership will be worth watching, particularly with Gunnhild positioned as a formidable figure in her own right. The premise gives both characters a stake in the throne and in what securing it might require. Michael and Horatio Hirst serve as writers, showrunners, and executive producers. The cast also includes Karlis Arnolds Avots, Rod Hallett, Alina Tomnikov, Sisse Marie, Rune Temte, and Jesper Christensen, alongside Molyneux, Madsen, and Miller.
The full-season release means viewers can follow that first struggle for power without waiting a week between chapters. Meanwhile, production on Season 2 is already underway, although its premiere date has not been announced.
Bloodaxe begins its battle for Norway on January 20, 2027, exclusively on Prime Video.
via Collider