Alex Garland’s movie version of Elden Ring has started filming and the first set footage shows that it’s going to stick very close to the original game.
Last week we described The Super Mario Galaxy Movie as the most authentic video game adaptation ever made. That doesn’t mean it’s a good movie, but the one argument you couldn’t make against it, is that it’s not true to the source material.
Although TV shows like The Last Of Us and Fallout have seen great success from sticking as closely as possible to the games they’re based on, movies tend to play things a lot looser – and usually suffer for it. For whatever reason, the more adult-themed the game the more it deviates, as you can see when you compare something like A Minecraft Movie to the various Resident Evil films (a new one is due out soon from Weapons director Zach Cregger).
If this leaked set footage is anything to go by though that’s not going to be a problem for Elden Ring, which is being handled by Ex Machina and Civil War director Alex Garland.
Considering how opaque its storytelling is, Elden Ring is an extremely difficult game to adapt in live action. Explain too much and you lose much of the allure of the original but leave things as vague and confusing as the real thing and you’re likely to put off most casual viewers.
That’s a problem given the game’s high fantasy world requires a big budget to realise but judging from these shots of the set things seem to be going well so far.
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The movie has only just started filming, so it’s not going to be out until next year at the earliest. The footage shows what is clearly a Church of Marika, that looks exactly the same as it does in the game.
There are many of the statutes of Marika in the game, so it’s impossible to tell where exactly this church is in the game world, but given the amount of greenery (you can tell it’s being filmed in England because of how wet everything looks) it may be the Fourth Chruch of Marika in the Weeping Peninsula, where it’s always raining.
You can see the set is not yet finished and there’s no sign of any actors. No formal annoucement has been made about the cast but rumours suggest that Cailee Spaeny (who worked with Garland on Devs), Ben Whishaw (the voice of Paddington Bear), and Kit Connor (from Heartstopper and who also worked with Garland on Warfare) are involved.
Considering the protagonist of Elden Ring is an entirely customisable character who is never heard to speak – much in the manner of Link from The Legend Of Zelda – it’s unclear how Garland is going to handle that side of things. But considering there’s also a live action Zelda movie on the way it’s going to be interesting to see how they approach the same problem.
Apart from the set design being on point the other encouraging aspect of the production is that Garland is a big fan of the game and has apparently played through it seven times. So even though he’s never done a fantasy film before he is a fan and he has done plenty of science fiction with fantasy elements, including the underappreciated Dredd and Annihilation. He was also the writer for 28 Days Later and the two 28 Years Later films.
It’s unknown whether the Elden Ring movie will be adapting the events of the game or if it will act as some kind of prequel or sequel. Surprisingly, given it’s by far their most successful game, developer FromSoftware has insisted they have no plans for a sequel.
There’s very little information on their current projects at all though, as the only game they have announced at the moment is Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive The Duskbloods, which is supposed to be out this year but hasn’t been seen in public since its reveal in 2025. There’s also supposed to be an Elden Ring port for the Switch 2, but that’s currently MIA as well.
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