It was rumored for weeks, but now it’s official:an Elden Ring movie is in the works at A24 with Alex Garland attached to direct. The confirmation is a little unsurprising at first blush —reports about this have been bouncing around since the beginning of the month. But, when you think about what the film will actually entail, it’s kind of shocking.
This is A24 – a studio known for its low-budget, independent productions. The most expensive movie it has ever bankrolled is the upcoming Timothée Chalamet vehicle Marty Supreme, directed by Uncut Gems' Josh Safdie. But with areported $70 million budget, that movie is still solidly in mid-budget territory. For context, there’snot a singleMCUmoviethat costs that little (the cheapest is the originalIron Man, which came in somewhere between$130and$140 million). A24 makes movies that have, until now, been cost-effective counterpoints to the franchise-obsessed, bloated blockbuster landscape.
A24’s Shift Toward IP And Action Filmmaking
That’s started to shift slightly in recent years. Though A24 still primarily makes low- and mid-budget original dramas and horror films, it has reportedly been interested in expanding into IP and action. Though it doesn’t have a director attached yet,the upcoming Death Stranding film adaptationwas the studio’s first announced foray into big IP, while Alex Garland’s ownCivil War(until Marty Supreme, the studio’s biggest budgeted movie) showed it moving into spectacle-driven action.
Civil War got a lot of mileage out of its reported $50 million budget, creating a war-torn America, with highways filled with abandoned cars, shootouts in the streets of Washington, D.C., and even the White House, and expensive-looking shots of helicopters. But it was still, essentially, working with a version of our reality. Its world was still, basically, our world; its heroes and villains were humans. That isn’t the case forElden Ring, and it has me wondering how big of a swing A24 will need to take to pull it off.
The Green Knight Is A Blueprint, But Only A Blueprint
The studio does have experience with fantasy in a similar vein thanks to David Lowery’s The Green Knight. That Arthurian adaptation had Dev Patel wandering a surreal medieval England populated with the kind of ambiguously puckish characters you would find in aFromSoftwaregame. The cinematography and locations also feel like a good match for Elden Ring’s aesthetic.
But one of the defining characteristics of Elden Ring is its boss fights. They’re big, they’re spectacular, and though some are human enough that they could be pulled off as action set pieces through the use of costuming and practical effects (and, even then, Margit the Fell Omen ishuge) others, like the dragons you can find throughout the world, would likely call for hefty helpings of CGI. I have no idea what Alex Garland’s take will be, and he’s made the most of mid-sized budgets his entire career — both as a writer-director of films like Annihilation, and in his collaborations as screenwriter with Danny Boyle.
Seriously, the shots of an empty, post-apocalyptic London in 28 Days Later are incredibly impressive given the movie only cost $8 million.
But spectacle is core to the appeal of Elden Ring. Incredible vistas, varied otherworldly environments, fantastical creatures. Locations like Stormveil Castle and Raya Lucaria Academy would require great location scouting, big sets, or a mixture of both. The game is filled with awe-inspiring vistas that seem like they would drive the budget up and up and up.
Though it doesn’t have the huge battlefield scenes of a fantasy epic likeThe Lord of the Rings, it’s also nowhere near as intimate as A24’s usual fare. The Green Knight is a good match in terms of tone and subject matter, but Elden Ring will call for a much grander scale. Will that mean the studio expanding into $100 million territory for the first time? Honestly, I don’t see how it doesn’t.
