I’m Calling It: The Elden Ring Movie Will Live Up to the Mario Movies’ Successes

As a gamer, I’m enjoying the current renaissance of video game adaptations. Whether it’s the new 3D-animated Super Mario Galaxy Movie or Sonic movies or award-winning TV series like The Last of Us, Fallout and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Hollywood is now filled with creators who are actually fans of the games they’re adapting, a shift from the 1990s when licenses were often purchased just to cash in on younger audiences. 

On Monday, A24 revealed the cast of the live-action adaptation of the Elden Ring movie, which will be directed by Alex Garland (Civil War, Annihilation) and released on March 3, 2028. While this looks promising on paper, it’s hard to ignore the scale of the challenge to adapt a game known for its personality-less protagonist, cryptic lore and multiple endings. Still, there is reason to believe this could become one of the most successful video game adaptations.

To start, A24, the studio behind the production, is known for acclaimed films such as The Brutalist, Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All at Once — all very different films following unique, humanistic visions. While the studio typically produces smaller films with budgets under $50 million, the Elden Ring movie is reportedly set to exceed a $100 million budget.

Filming is already underway, and leaked set photos show what appears to be an almost perfect recreation of locations and scenes from the game. On Wednesday, a video uploaded to YouTube showed a crowd cheering during the hanging of a character known as the Dung Eater, closely mirroring a moment from the game’s opening intro cinematic.

Watching that short clip of a character who isn’t central to the story, yet is depicted with such accuracy, is astonishing. My biggest concern, though, is Elden Ring’s story. Unlike some other adaptations in development, such as Death Stranding, The Legend of Zelda and Resident Evil, Elden Ring is just one game with one DLC (Shadow of the Erdtree) and one multiplayer spinoff (Nightreign). That’s it.

Even so, developer FromSoftware packs an immense amount of lore into the game, though not in the traditional sense through dialogue or readable documents. Instead, as in its other titles, the studio distributes background details about characters and the world through descriptions of items, weapons, armor and spells.

This approach to world-building, which FromSoftware first used in 2009’s Demon’s Souls, is like a jigsaw puzzle. But instead of assembling pieces to form a picture, it’s about taking two or three sentences and building an entire book. Literally, fans who create YouTube videos about the game’s lore are now publishing a 400-page book.

Not only is there a vast amount of lore to dig into, the Elden Ring’s sheer scope is immense. The game’s main story follows the player character’s journey to become an Elden Lord in the Lands Between, a god over mysterious undying lands. That quest is shaped by wars and betrayals that occurred long before the events of the game. It unfolds like a season of Game of Thrones, which is fitting given that George R. R. Martin helped develop Elden Ring’s story.

Fortunately, there’s hope that director Alex Garland understands the assignment when it comes to adapting Elden Ring. Unlike earlier video game adaptations, where screenwriters were often tasked with making sense of stories from games they hadn’t played and forcing them into a 90-minute structure, this production is being led by a fan of the game.

A New Yorker article about A24 last year recounted an anecdote involving Garland and Noah Sacco, the studio’s head of film. Sacco visited Garland, who had been enthusiastic about the game, and proposed a film adaptation. Sacco approved the idea, and Garland went on to write a 200-page script that includes 40 pages of visuals. The two later traveled to Japan to seek approval from the game’s director, Hidetaka Miyazaki. Miyazaki was reportedly impressed with Garland’s knowledge of the game, which came from completing it at least seven times — a sizable feat considering it takes 60 hours or more to beat.

We still don’t know which time period the Elden Ring movie will explore. One assumption is that it could serve as a prequel, focusing on the Shattering, the in-game historical event that set the stage for the game’s present-day story. Extensive lore surrounds those events, and because FromSoftware leaves many details open to interpretation, there’s room for Garland to develop a compelling narrative while staying true to the source material.

Looking at all the elements of this production, the pieces are in place for a successful film. An award-winning studio is making one of its largest investments in a video game adaptation, led by a director who is a devoted fan. He has the approval of the game’s creator, who was not quick to grant licensing rights, and Martin is also involved as a producer. The Elden Ring movie has the potential to be not just a worthy adaptation, but one of the best video game adaptations ever made.

At least, that’s the hope.