A24's Elden Ring Film Goes on Sale at the American Film Market
A24 is taking its live-action Elden Ring film to the American Film Market, the deal market where distributors from around the world buy and sell films. Deadline reports that it is the biggest-budget standalone project ever offered at a film or TV market.
The budget is pegged between $175 million and $200 million, closer to the top figure, according to Deadline. A24 is paying for the whole film itself. Amazon MGM has already picked up the international pay-1 streaming rights in a large number of territories. Pay-1 is the first paid streaming window, the stretch of time after a film leaves cinemas when people can rent or subscribe to watch it at home.
Alex Garland wrote and directed the film. He also made the 2024 war drama Civil War, and he is working from a script that runs to at least 180 pages, many of them packed with visuals. Kit Connor plays the lead character, the protagonist. The cast also includes Ben Whishaw, Cailee Spaeny, Tom Burke, Havana Rose Liu, Sonoya Mizuno, Jonathan Pryce, Ruby Cruz and Nick Offerman.
Filming wrapped over the summer, and the movie is now in post-production, the stage where visual effects, sound and editing are finished. Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects company founded by George Lucas, is handling the effects work. Deadline says the film is set for release in March 2028, in cinemas and in IMAX theatres.
The story has a long history before the cameras. The original Elden Ring video game was created under Hidetaka Miyazaki, and its story came from George R.R. Martin, the author of A Song of Ice and Fire. Martin is one of the film's producers, along with Vince Gerardis. The other producers are Peter Rice, Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich of DNA, the production company.
For a market like the AFM, the film's pitch is now in front of buyers who decide which titles reach screens in their own countries. Deals made there often shape how and where a film is seen long after its first showing. What happens next will show up in the deals that follow, and buyers will set those terms.
