Dev Patel is on fire in the new trail­er for The Green Knight

While not quite as famed as his con­sort King Arthur, Sir Gawain occu­pies a posi­tion of esteem in the annals of medieval leg­end, the tales of his clever and bru­tal exploits spread­ing far and wide across Europe. He behead­ed his rivals, fought off ter­ri­ble mon­sters, and res­cued fair maid­ens – you know, nor­mal gal­lantry stuff.

He’ll get his day in the sun cour­tesy of David Low­ery​‘s next film, The Green Knight, the new trail­er for which appeared online today. But while the film will adhere to the set­ting and lan­guage of the orig­i­nal text, the film­mak­er will take his fair share of lib­er­ties as well, start­ing with the casting.

After adding a dash of col­or to the white world of Dick­ens with The Per­son­al His­to­ry of David Cop­per­field, Dev Patel will join forces with Low­ery on a more racial­ly diverse inter­pre­ta­tion of Arthuri­an myth. He leads as the pow­er­ful Sir Gawain, joined by his lieges Lord and Scav­enger (Joel Edger­ton and Bar­ry Keoghan) as he pur­sues the nefar­i­ous Green Knight (Ralph Ine­son) and works to earn the favor of the come­ly Lady (Ali­cia Vikan­der).

Per­haps most intrigu­ing of all – I’d heard scut­tle­butt that Low­ery was rac­ing to final­ize what would be a pret­ty elab­o­rate array of spe­cial effects, and this trail­er hints at what could have been hold­ing him up. After spon­ta­neous­ly burst­ing into flames in the open­ing shot, Gawain lat­er comes face-to-face with a hideous wood­en-tree-face crea­ture that undoubt­ed­ly bears him ill will, two sug­ges­tions of hand­some post-pro­duc­tion budgeting.

Not that Low­ery won’t be able to han­dle it, hav­ing already shep­herd­ed the effects show­case Pete’s Drag­on through pro­duc­tion. The man’s rep­u­ta­tion pre­cedes him on a few fronts, not just as a sea­soned pro with dig­i­tal SFX but as a stark­ly min­i­mal sto­ry­teller (lest we for­get A Ghost Sto­ry) and as a mas­ter styl­ist of pas­toral beau­ty (as in Ain’t Them Bod­ies Saints).

He’s giv­en us a lot to believe in, and pro­vid­ed a fig­ure­head behind which cinephiles might ral­ly. He’s prac­ti­cal­ly halfway to being a knight himself.

The Green Knight comes to cin­e­mas in the US on 30 July.

*Update 11/05/2021* A24 have just released a sec­ond trail­er, which you can view at your leisure below