David Mackenzie’s Outlaw King gets its first trailer

Move over, Braveheart. Step aside, Rob Roy. There’s a new film about a Scottish historical hero in town. The first trailer for David Mackenzie’s Outlaw King – telling the story of how nobleman Robert the Bruce became his nation’s outlaw hero during Edward I’s occupation of Scotland – has just dropped online, and it looks like the Scottish director has come up with an epic.

The medieval drama stars Chris Pine as Robert the Bruce and the brooding trailer gives a glimpse of some of the large scale action we should expect from this Netflix production, which was filmed near Linlithgow, West Lothian as well as other locations across Scotland, including Linlithgow Palace, Doune Castle, Craigmillar Castle, Dunfermline Abbey, Glasgow Cathedral, Mugdock Country Park, Aviemore, the Isle of Skye, Glen Coe, Loch Lomond, University of Glasgow, and Blackness Castle.

This is Pine’s second time acting for Mackenzie: the pair worked together on the bruising western heist thriller Hell or High Water. Outlaw King also marks Mackenzie’s return to making films in Scotland. His last films shot here were the Glasgow sci-fi Perfect Sense and T in the Park-set romance You Instead, both released in 2011.

Pine certainly looks the part in the first trailer, and we hear snippets of his Scottish accent, including a gruff speech in front of his threadbare army: “You can fight for God, for country, for family – I do not care, as long as you FIGHT!!!!” It’s too early to say if the Star Trek star's accent is Mel Gibson-level bad, but you do wonder when a Scottish actor might get the chance to play one of our folk heroes.

The film also features Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Florence Pugh, Billy Howle, Tony Curran, Stephen Dillane and Sam Spruell, as well as the great James Cosmo, who was in Braveheart all those years ago.

Outlaw King will open the Toronto International Film Festival (the first Scottish film to ever open that festival) on 6 Sep and is released on Netflix 9 Nov. Fingers crossed some Scottish cinemas get permission to screen the film too, as it would be a shame to not get the opportunity to see this epic on the big screen.

Take a look at the trailer in the player above or on YouTube