The last few days have been packed with rumours about a rather eye-opening story, that Alex Garland is set to direct a movie adaptation of Elden Ring. Huge pinches of salt here, but enough smoke around this potential bonfire to make it worth investigating...
Garland most recently directed Warfare, a powerful $20 million war film some have called the most realistic ever made.
He may not seem the obvious fit to direct a movie version of one of the biggest games of recent years. But maybe he’s actually just that.
A couple of days ago a site called Nexus Point News claimed to have intel suggesting the director was in talks to work on an Elden Ring movie. The story was pulled, but since that we’ve heard similar rumblings from self professed movie industry “insider” Jeff Sneider.
Alex Garland’s involvement isn’t the only piece of the puzzle here either. It is reportedly an A24 production, the company behind many of the most celebrated mainstream-leaning arthouse films of the last decade, including Midsommar, Moonlight and Garland’s own Warfare and Civil War films.
Any adaptation of Elden Ring is a tricky prospect, because the game does not have a conventionally coherent plot. You could play it for 100-plus hours and have no real idea of what’s going on.
But in the hands of Garland and A24, it will be interesting at the very least. The director is also a huge fan of the game, according to PC Gamer.
This news, while unconfirmed, is also consistent with A24’s previously announced plans to work on larger projects linked to existing IP. That was the kind of news that made some film fans’ hearts sink, but taking on Elden Ring is a pretty compelling prospect.
Not played Elden Ring? It has sold upwards of 30 million copies to date and is a third-person action game in which you fight your way across a largely desolate world, The Lands Between. Almost every creature you meet is hostile and, every now and then, you’ll have to take on a huge — and usually somewhat horrific-looking — boss.
A quick scan of YouTube will no shortage of Elden Ring lore videos, some of which are hours long. But the series’s storytelling is so obtuse, there’s a big question of whether a conventional movie plot could ever really feel like an Elden Ring film. We'll keep an eye out for more news on this one.
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