Elden Ring: Official Live-Action Film Adaptation

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Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. and A24 today announced their collaboration with writer and director Alex Garland for a live-action film adaptation of FromSoftware Inc.’s world-renowned video game Elden Ring. Elden Ring was created under the guidance of FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki, based on a mythological story written by George R. R. Martin, author of the fantasy novel series, “A Song of Ice and Fire.”

To bring the epic world and intense action of ELDEN RING to film, the project will be led by filmmaker Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Civil War, Warfare) as writer and director. The film will be produced by Peter Rice alongside Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich from DNA, and George R. R. Martin and Vince Gerardis.

Via: Live-Action Film Adaptation Of ELDEN RING Announced

28 Days Later, Sunshine, Dredd, Ex Machina, & Annihilation all rank EXTREMELY highly on my list of films with him as a writer for all of them, and the director of the last two. I'm not sure how they're gonna tackle diving into the narrative of Elden Ring, but there's a LOT to work with and any number of a range of scales to be able to focus on. I've got pretty high confidence that this will end up being something that I thoroughly enjoy as much as the film adaptation of video game content is particularly risky.

The additional benefit is George R. R. Martin really helped to give back a lot of confidence in adaptations of darker fantasy with Game of Thrones, so that helps to establish a tonal expectation of what an audience would be looking for, which aligns really well with the types of subject matter that I think that Alex Garland really does his best with.


I think that if I had to place early bets on anything that I think would work perfectly and also carry in some flexibility with its interptetation – it'd be Vyke's story. Especially because he's the character on the cover of the game but a voiceless NPC who's very much in the background of what the players experience, it'd give a really good hook cross-promotionally for players to be able to have that little bit of narrative that ties in really closely to what's happening if they check out the game afterwards.

Vyke was the individual closest to becoming Elden Lord, beloved by a dragon priestess, and ends up consumed by madness for trying to spare his finger maiden from her fate by offering himself up to forces of chaos to suffer in her stead. It's got potential for all sorts of twists & character hooks, and interactions with cosmically unknowable forces that just mesh SO brilliantly with what I know his work for. On top of that, a lot of cut questlines were focused around Vyke's story which changed throughout the game's development, so that leaves a lot of potential for there to be notes to use as a basis for crafting a narrative that works with the game, and given that the Tarnished really takes up their journey after Vyke's failure, I think it'd be perfect.

That said, they could genuinely go ANYWHERE with it, and I'm monumentally curious what ends up happening with this project. I've also gotta go catch up on some of his more recent films to see if there's anything else that comes to mind.




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[Cthulhu]

My expectations are on the floor but there's a lot of potential given the amount of lore and various stories in the game

 

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A buddy of mine mentioned that Alex Garland does the cinematic presentation of, "walking simulator where violence could happen at any moment" very well with his previous films which nails the tension of Elden Ring really well, but yeah – as with all video game film adaptations, extremely tempered expectations are definitely the baseline that's best to have.



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[Cthulhu]

I had to google Garland, but I think Annihilation is pretty close to a Souls vibe; long, slow scenes, megalophobia and weirdness, eldritch monstrosities, etc. It'll probably be CGI heavy but that's to be expected I suppose.

 

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Yeah, the Mutant Bear scene from Annihilation is still viscerally terrifying and uses a pretty surprising level of practical effects, and the behind-the-scenes stuff for the concept art and whatnot feels like it could just be dropped directly into a Souls game. I also think that the portrayal of the Shimmer & Lena is potentially what inspired some of the themes in Elden Ring with Queen Marika & the Silver Tears as these sorts of unnerving copies of other people. The visuals with the pale roots of this spreading cosmic tree that's warping the whole world with this sort of god-like entity inside it eventually being consumed in flames just hits the nail on the head.

To go back further, while Danny Boyle directed it, Alex Gardland was the writer for Sunshine whose whole vibe is also EXTREMELY Souls-like in how it's a little group of NPCs out of their depth & existentially struggling in the face of extremely end-times circumstances that sort of slowly break through everyone piece-by-piece. It even has this sort of cosmic madness coming into play as well from them being just overwhelmed by the sheer scale of what the sun actually is, how little we are by comparison, and how all-consuming the light is in the face of the darkness of space.

I feel like this and the character of Pinbacker may just straight up be some of the core components of inspiration for the Frenzied Flame's Lord of Chaos in Elden Ring, given how in the game, Shabriri is explicitly defined by having no eyes and crying tears of burning flames, with the Lord of Chaos's head looking like this empty sun. Especially when looking at how Pinbacker talks about things in the deleted scenes (which makes another good example of Alex Garland's writing and the sorts of themes he's really into), it really matches to this core destructive sense of becoming one with everything as a path to annihilation that loops back into the central themes of Annihilation.

TBH, it's the sort of thing that – if done right – could really bring back a lot of the existential horror into fantasy in a more seriously-toned way that was a foundation of the Swords & Sorcery genre when it started back in the late 1920s with Robert E. Howard writing Conan the Barbarian (as he was very close personal friends with H.P. Lovecraft).

Again, there're endless ways for something like this to go wrong, but it's also one of those projects where it feels like this could be amazing because it's got exactly the person I'd most want at the helm. (This topic also reminds me of the over-a-decade-old CGI rig test footage that Guillermo Del Toro did for his At The Mountains of Madness and maybe someday that'll happen). I really just want to see more things like this when it also means that a director's gonna get an opportunity to REALLY lean in on the exact type of thing that they're particularly excellent at.



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[Cthulhu]

I need to watch that one

Speaking of GDT, he's doing a Frankenstein movie and you can easily see a Lovecraft film in a similar style:

 

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It's definitely worth checking out, and that GDT Frankenstein film does look solid.

GDT & Tarsem Singh are the two directors whose use of color I most appreciate in their filmmaking, because it's always a specific detail that they focus on, and it gives this sort of storybook reality quality to their films that I think really works for the kinds of stories that they tend to focus on telling through film.

Speaking of color, Elden Ring having a really specific visual style to it does make me curious what sort of locations they'd focus on. For as important as it is, the overbearing gold of Leyndell is basically like having a built-in sepia filter, and the game does some really interesting things in how it portrays color between night & day in the various regions (with Shadow of the Erdtree taking that and really dialing it up to 11).

Unlike a miniseries or something where you have a lot of time to explore various locations, there wouldn't be quite the same amount of time to be able to really spend in a large number of different places. The Fellowship of the Ring has Hobbiton, Rivendell, Moria, Orthanc, & Lothlorien, which feels like it's fairly decent in number of distinct locations and being able to at least feel like things lingered there for enough time to really get a sense of them to some degree.



If things do end up following Vyke, I'd assume given the cut content that we'd start out in Stormvale Castle, since that's where all of his cut content had him start out.

There's a path by the Lux Ruins where Lansseax will suddenly appear to attack you, although she'll vanish from there, and then the other region around Stormcaller Church in Altus Plateau is where Lansseax comes out of the sky to fight you for real. She was the one who specifically loved Vyke and attempted to guide him initially to becoming the Elden Lord, so there's always the possibility of things starting out there instead.

To that end, in the 1.0 version of the lore Shabriri was driven away to the Southern continent, which is why there's the Ailing Village by the Callu Baptismal Church where the Frenzied Madness has taken hold. It's possible that he was driven out of the Frenzied Flame village in northern Liurnia given its proximity to the border of Leyndell. That's also the location of the Church of Inhibition, which is where Vyke first appears as an Invader to attack you, & where you discover his deceased Finger Maiden.

We know he also went into the depths of Leyndell into the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds and encountered the Three Fingers given the damage to his armor, and beyond that there's the Lord Contender's Evergaol in the Mountaintop of the Giants where he's sealed away which was assumedly where he was defeated before he could sacrifice himself into the Forge of the Giants.


Even in the little bits and pieces, there's enough to form some interesting potential narratives and see some of the key locations as well as present the general framework of what the theme of the game is about, as well as showing off some various impressive locations, but not TOO many crazy things like the Eternal Cities or whatnot.




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[Wol]

Wow I watched Annihilation years ago and loved the movie and its aesthetic. Elden Ring does possess that ethereal element to it so that could be a perfect match in the end.

I imagine the movie will be based on The Lands Between's past, with the demi-gods and civilizations drama all present in the narrative. I don't see an adaptation of the base game's story to be feasible. As far as source material goes, I feel Elden Ring is really hard to adapt, so I won't get my hopes too high. If they succeed, it will be a miracle.