Prime Video Bets Two Seasons on Bloodaxe Before It Airs

Prime Video will release all eight episodes of Bloodaxe on January 20, 2027, and the streamer already ordered a second season on June 16, 2026.

The teaser, shown at New York Comic Con on October 9, 2026, sells a 10th-century fight for Norway’s throne. The money was committed months earlier, while cameras in Ireland were already turning toward a sequel.

Prime Video Ordered Season 2 Before Anyone Saw an Episode

Prime Video renewed Bloodaxe for a second season on June 16, 2026, before it had named a premiere date. Michael Hirst, who created Vikings and now showruns this series with his son Horatio Hirst, treated the pickup as a vote of belief, not a paperwork shuffle.

Amazon have also already commissioned a second season of our new Norse saga for Prime Video, which begins shooting in Ireland within a few weeks.

Michael Hirst, co-creator and showrunner, Prime Video announcement, June 16, 2026

Peter Friedlander, head of global television at Amazon MGM Studios, said the Hirsts had already shown that ambitious historical drama travels, and that Bloodaxe belongs on a slate of premium global event series. Hirst thanked Friedlander by name and called the show “this new incarnation of a show which means so much to millions of people across the world.”

That line is the wager in plain speech. He is not pitching a cold start. He is asking the Vikings audience to walk back into a Norse hall under a new title, on a new service, with a new king.

THE ROAD TO A PRE-SOLD SAGA

1. June 2025: Xavier Molyneux and Jessica Madsen are named as Erik Bloodaxe and Gunnhild, and Season 1 filming begins in Wicklow, Ireland.
2. June 16, 2026: Prime Video orders Season 2 and slates production for August in Ireland.
3. August 19, 2026: The studio says the second season has begun filming and names five new actors.
4. October 5, 2026: First-look stills go out, with the great hall at Ashford Studios dressed as Trondheim.
5. October 9, 2026: A New York Comic Con panel debuts the teaser and locks January 20, 2027 as the drop date.
6. January 20, 2027: Season 1 arrives in more than 240 countries and territories, all at once.

By the time the teaser hit the main stage, Season 2 was already a working production, not a hope. Friedlander’s shop is paying for two seasons of a show the public has seen for less than two minutes.

The King Behind the Bloodaxe Nickname

The series follows Erik Haraldsson, remembered as Bloodaxe, a son of Harald Fairhair, the king later credited with pulling Norway under one rule. Gareth Williams, then a curator of early medieval coinage, wrote that Eric is one of the best-known Viking names in the British Isles and still a thin figure on paper.

What survives is ugly and short. Saga tradition makes him Harald’s favourite among a round total of 20 sons, then says he secured the succession by killing brothers. A Latin history calls him fratris interfector, brother-killer, which is why Williams argues that “blood” in the nickname likely points at family, not a famous axe swing in a raid.

His hold on Norway is described as harsh and unpopular. His younger brother Hakon, raised at the court of Athelstan of Wessex, came home with English backing. Williams notes that Eric appears to have abandoned Norway to Hakon without a fight, then spent the rest of his life contesting Northumbria, ruling there around 947 to 948 and again around 952 to 954. He died in 954 at Stainmore, and independent Viking rule in Northumbria died with him. York coins stamped ERIC REX are among the few objects that still carry his name.

WHERE HISTORIANS SPLIT

• The nickname: Williams ties Bloodaxe to the killing of brothers, while other Norse texts blame a career of raiding for the same label.
• The Norwegian years: Later histories disagree on the exact calendar of his kingship, so the hard dates that do hold are the Northumbria spells and the death in 954.
• Gunnhild herself: She is treated as historical in the sagas and doubted by some modern scholars, who have only literary evidence for the woman called Mother of Kings.

That is a thin life on which to hang two commissioned seasons. Amazon is not buying a long, settled reign. It is buying a succession crisis, an exile, and a marriage the sagas cannot leave alone.

Why Michael Hirst Let His Son Take the Helm

Hirst wrote all 89 episodes of Vikings across six seasons and has said the work ran day and night for six years. He finished that flagship in 2018 and later said the job nearly killed him. When Netflix mounted Vikings: Valhalla, he kept an executive producer credit and stayed away from the writing. “I had nothing to do” with Valhalla, he has said, and he did not want to be involved.

Bloodaxe is the project that brought him back, and the reason he gives is Horatio. Arturo Interian, an executive producer who also worked on Vikings, took him the idea of Erik Bloodaxe, a famous berserker most viewers have never heard of. Hirst has said he did not think he was quite up to another Viking series on his own.

Horatio’s first professional writing credit is this show. He had already appeared on Valhalla as Bishop Grimketel, then on Hirst’s Billy the Kid. On the Wicklow set he put the family overlap in one sentence: it is a show about family, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, written by a father-and-son writing team. Michael says the two of them have not quarreled about the work. Horatio added, “Yet.”

Season 1, Michael said, is “a succession drama for the throne of Norway between Erik and his brothers.” Horatio’s addendum was shorter. “And he has a lot of them.”

Mother of Kings, Witch in the Sagas

Jessica Madsen, known from Bridgerton, plays Gunnhild, a Danish princess the sagas later name Mother of Kings. Williams wrote that those same sagas generally portray her as an evil witch. The show is not treating her as scenery.

We’ve always called them the medieval Bonnie and Clyde.

Horatio Hirst, co-creator, on the Bloodaxe set, August 2025

Michael filled in the comparison. They were on the move, he said, a very attractive couple, and they had to be charismatic to do what they did. In the first-look scene, Erik comes home stained from an ambush, the hall drinks as if Valhalla is one cup away, and Gunnhild walks in with news that turns into a public fight neither of them will lose.

Hirst has also said the series uses magic realism to pull viewers into a Viking mind-set, and that it stages the moment when Christianity starts to overcome the pagan world. That is the same religious fault line Valhalla used a century later in story time, now aimed at Harald Fairhair’s failing court rather than at Leif and Freydis.

Jesper Christensen plays the aging Harald, whose great hall at Ashford was built to feel like the inside of a whale, ribs and all. Alina Tomnikov plays Greta, a shield-maiden, and also the Seer Harald consults as the court begins to plot. The first choice for the throne, in the story the Hirsts are telling, is not Erik. It is Haakon.

Between Vikings and Valhalla, a 10th-Century Gap

The Hirsts place Bloodaxe in the 10th century, about 100 years after the events of Vikings and about 70 years before Valhalla. It is not a sequel. It is the missing middle, produced by MGM Television, the same shop that made Valhalla for Netflix and now makes this series for Prime Video.

Vikings ran six seasons on History, with Hirst writing every episode. Valhalla ran three seasons on Netflix under Jeb Stuart, launched in 2022, and ended with its third season in 2024. Morgan O’Sullivan, Steve Stark, John Weber, and Sheila Hockin, names from that earlier run, are back as executive producers, O’Sullivan through O’Sullivan Productions. The marine advisor, production designer, costume designer, and hair and makeup leads from Vikings returned to Ashford as well.

The teaser is being watched as if Ragnar Lothbrok might still walk in. That is the wrong century and the wrong family, and it is also the appetite Amazon is counting on. People who want another long Viking run already have their answer in the Season 2 order. People who want the old title spoken on screen are waiting on a different king.

THREE NORSE SAGAS ON THREE PLATFORMS

Official series account copy puts the conflict in one line: the bonds between brothers will be broken, and only one can seize the throne. That is Erik against Haakon, pagan court against a brother raised among Christians, with Denmark and an English king pulled into the same fight.

Who Xavier Molyneux Plays, and Who He Isn’t

Molyneux, an Australian actor from Neighbours, is the title wager. Vikings was sold on Travis Fimmel’s Ragnar. Bloodaxe is being sold on a name from the sagas and on Hirst’s, with a lead most Prime Video subscribers will meet for the first time in January.

Levi Miller, who played the boy in Pan, is Haakon the Good, the half-brother fostered in England. Rod Hallett, from Outlander, is King Athelstan, the English monarch in that plot. Karlis Arnolds Avots plays Egil Skallagrimsson, the poet of Egil’s Saga who stands in the literary record as Erik’s enemy. Sisse Marie and Rune Temte are Queen Thyra and King Gorm of Denmark, Gunnhild’s parents in this version of the story.

SEASON 1 PRINCIPAL ROLES

• Xavier Molyneux: Erik Bloodaxe, the son fighting for Norway’s throne.
• Jessica Madsen: Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, the Danish wife who will not sit quiet in the hall.
• Levi Miller: Haakon the Good, Erik’s younger half-brother and the father’s first choice.
• Jesper Christensen: King Harald Fairhair, the unifier whose health is the spark.
• Rod Hallett: King Athelstan, the English ruler drawn into the Scandinavian war.
• Karlis Arnolds Avots: Egil Skallagrimsson, the saga poet across the feud.

On August 19, 2026, Prime Video added Gard Løkke as a Season 2 regular, with Melina Åkerman, Kieran Bew, Sebastian Bull, and George Burgess in recurring parts. Bew has already been seen on House of the Dragon. Amazon’s later show page also lists Maddy Ambus, Steven Brand, and Lasse Steen among Season 2 names, with Steen’s character due to appear first in Season 1. Fred Toye, one of the executive producers, directed the opening episodes.

Eight Episodes Land at Once on January 20

The NYCC panel on October 9, 2026, was the first time the Hirsts, Molyneux, Madsen, and Miller discussed the series in public. Rotem Rusak moderated. Prime Video then posted the teaser and the date together: all eight episodes of Season 1 on January 20, 2027, in more than 240 countries and territories.

History put Vikings out week by week. Prime Video is dropping the whole succession war in a night. That is a different kind of bet from the Season 2 order, and it runs in the same direction. The streamer wants this treated as an event series, closer to its other big swings than to a cable saga that earned its audience over years.

MGM Television is the producer, under Amazon MGM Studios. Additional executive producers include Steve Stark through Toluca Pictures, Arturo Interian, Morgan O’Sullivan, John Weber, and Sheila Hockin. The craft departments that once built Kattegat are building Harald’s hall now, on the same Irish stages, for a king the coins remember and the sagas cannot agree on.

Season 2 is already filming in Ireland. Season 1 arrives on January 20, 2027.