The last couple of years have been all about the 'Magic and Dragons' movies; Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Eragon and Narnia, but it looks like directors are finally turning to the most interesting corner of that world for their stories… Vikings!

Currently in production there are no fewer than four seperate movies based in the Viking world; Beowulf, Outlander, Pathfinder and Valhalla Rising. Did I miss any?

Pathfinder
A Viking boy is left behind after his clan battles a Native American tribe. Raised within the tribe, he ultimately becomes their savoir in a fight against the Norsemen

Pathfinder is directed by Marcus Nispel, the guy responsible for the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' remake, a film i'm a big defender of, so I'm expecting something pretty good. The cast is pretty unknown except for Karl Urban who played Eomer in the last two LOTR movies. Pathfinder was wrapped back in November and is set for an April release in the UK and US.

Check out the pathfinder official site here for trailers et all

Beowulf
The Scandinavian warrior Beowulf must fight and defeat the monster Grendel who is terrorizing towns, and later, Grendel's mother, who begins killing out of revenge.

Beowulf is the oldest surviving english text on record (written in about 1100ad) and will be well known by pretty much anyone who went to school in the UK, It's also one of the most well known viking stories going. Unlike 'Pathfinder' Beowulf has an all-star cast including; John Malkovich, Crispin Glover, Anthony Hopkins, Brendan Gleeson, Robin Wright Penn, Angelina Jolie and Ray Winstone (as Beowulf), with the whole cast under the command of Robert Zemeckis.

The Twist to this whole tale is that the film will be animated. Zemeckis is using the same motion capture technology he used for 'Polar Express' and apparently with recent improvents it's almost impossible to tell whats real and whats animated (which begs the question… why bother?).

Beowulf drops into cinemas in November of this year. 

Outlander
During the reign of the Vikings, Kainan (Caviezel), a man from a far-off world, crash-lands on Earths, bringing with him an alien predator known as the Moorwen. Though both man and monster are seeking revenge for violence committed against them, Kainan leads the alliance to kill the Moorwen by fusing his advanced technology with the Viking's Iron Age weaponry.

The nerd inside me is most excited about this one. A sci-fi twist to the viking genre is a great idea, and done properly could work really well. The Director Howard McCain has done little of note, but seems to have lined himself up with some great actors to kick out his first feature; James Caviezel, Ron Perlman and John Hurt.

Filmstalker got the drop on a creature effects clip from the film here (embedded flash)

There's also some behind the scenes footage via the 'Space Channel' here and a 1 minute promo here (windows streaming)

Vallhalla Rising
Virtually nothing is known about this film, but i'm excited to see it for two reason: 1 - It's being directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, the danish director behind the 'Pusher' movies, who was also responsible for one of the most cruelly ignored movies of the last couple of years 'Fear X' (crappy title… but trust me it's a good film), and 2 - It will star Mad Mikkelsen (the latest Bond Villain).

Mikkelsen's character in Bond was quite soft, but if you have any doubt the guy can play mean, check him out in the 'Pusher' movies, the guy is nails.