Alex Garland will write and direct the upcoming film version of FromSoftware’s hugely acclaimed dark fantasy video game, Elden Ring.
Rumours about this have been swirling for some time, with the veracity of the story being questioned and causing some outlets online to get a bit upset with each other. The only way that we’d know for sure if Alex Garland really was directing an Elden Ring movie was if A24 – said to be behind the project – confirmed it.
But blimey! That has now happened: Alex Garland will be writing and directing A24’s Elden Ring, as confirmed by Variety.
Announcing the film now certainly makes sense. In the next week or so, Garland will be hitting the publicity trail as 28 Years Later, the third zombie movie in the long-running series that he has penned, rolls out across the world.
The filmmaker would have found himself batting away the question non-stop anyway, potentially taking some of the shine off 28 Years Later, so this feels like a smart move from A24.
Speaking of A24, this movie undoubtedly marks its biggest and most complex undertaking yet.
It’s been a couple of years since the studio announced that it wanted to diversify its portfolio, adding bigger films with action to its usual slate of indie and arthouse gems. This project signals a giant step in that direction but it’s very, very comforting to see that A24 as it pushes in that new direction, it has elected to go with Garland as its creative fulcrum.
He has that distinct knack for weirdness and artistic storytelling that should ensure that the studio creates a clear template for tentpole films that are visually and narratively different from other blockbusters.
One of the most acclaimed games of 2022, Elden Ring was praised for the sheer vastness of its world and its intricate design. It’s a huge dark fantasy RPG and we’re intrigued to see how it will be adapted into a much shorter medium.
Still, we’ve suspected that Garland was an avid gamer ever since that sequence in 2000’s The Beach where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character morphs into a video game version of himself as his mind unravels. A couple of decades later, Garland is going to be doing more than nodding towards his love for the medium of games… he’s going to be adapting one of the most popular titles of the decade. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
