Alex Garland’s Elden Ring movie reportedly carries a hefty budget of almost $200 million, making it A24’s most expensive movie ever – and it’s not close.
Background information on the live-action adaptation of FromSoftware and George R.R. Martin’s 2022 RPG was shared in a Wall Street Journal report. The site stated that, according to its sources, Elden Ring’s budget is “nearly $200 million.”
That makes it far and away the most expensive movie for the arthouse film-focused company, which has built a reputation for delivering memorable projects on more modest budgets for the last 14 years. Should Elden Ring’s reported budget prove accurate, it would mean Garland’s film falls in line with Marvel movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home ($200 million via Variety) and Jurassic World Rebirth ($180 million via The Hollywood Reporter).
As seen in 2025’s Marty Supreme, that’s a far cry from A24’s usual strategy. The Timothée Chalamet-led, Josh Safdie-directed drama made headlines ahead of its release for being the most expensive film the company had produced at $70 million (via Deadline).
That puts Elden Ring at nearly three times the cost of A24’s next-most-expensive picture. Garland’s Civil War supposedly cost $50 million before that, according to Variety. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s The Smashing Machine reportedly carried a similar budget. In other words, nothing really comes close to A24’s first major swing into the world of video game movie adaptations.
For now, we know little about Elden Ring ahead of its 2028 premiere, so it’s hard to say exactly why it costs so much. Earlier this year, the movie studio announced the film had a pretty stacked cast, which includes familiar faces like Kit Connor (X-Men, Warfare), Cailee Spaeny (Alien: Romulus, Civil War), Nick Offerman (The Last of Us, Parks and Recreation), Havana Rose Liu (Tuner, Bottoms), and more. Early production photos then teased faithful recreations of some iconic sets, with more making their way to the internet not long after.
The Elden Ring movie’s big budget may not have always been the plan for what’s shaping up to, one way or another, be a massive release for A24. Previous reports had the live-action fantasy flick pinned at just more than $100 million, suggesting either that initial rumors were inaccurate or Garland’s budget somehow ballooned over the course of production. Filming finally wrapped in July of this year.
The Elden Ring movie was announced in May 2025 and is expected to premiere March 3, 2028. It will probably be a little while longer before we see any official images or a trailer, so in the meantime, you can read about how actor and Dark Souls superfan Peter Serafinowicz landed a role in the film.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
