180 pages — visuals included. That is the reported length of the screenplay behind A24’s Elden Ring adaptation, and if the maths holds, cinema audiences could be settling in for close to three hours when it arrives in March 2028.
Deadline’s exclusive report on 27 October offers the first concrete hint at the scale of the project, and it paints a picture of the most ambitious video game adaptation the independent studio has ever mounted.
A 180-Page Screenplay Points to a Three-Hour Epic
According to the report, writer-director Alex Garland has delivered a script that “runs to at least 180 pages with visuals, implying the movie could push towards three hours”. No official runtime has been confirmed and the edit could still trim things down, but the estimate would put the finished cut in Lord of the Rings territory — or beyond it.
That would be a striking escalation for Garland, whose longest feature to date is the 115-minute sci-fi puzzle Annihilation. The Elden Ring movie would stretch well past that footprint.
For comparison, The Super Mario Bros. Movie ran a brisk 92 minutes, and even the extended editions of Peter Jackson’s trilogy peaked around 200 minutes per instalment. A near-three-hour theatrical cut would be unprecedented for a video game adaptation — a statement of intent as much as a runtime.
The source material justifies the ambition. FromSoftware’s 2022 action RPG — directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, with world-building by George R. R. Martin — is dense with lore, bosses and landscapes. Fitting the Lands Between into anything shorter would mean brutal cuts.
“The ‘faithful’ film will follow his journey… There are said to be battles between his character and impressive monsters and dragons.”
A24’s Most Expensive Bet — and Amazon’s Helping Hand
The scale is not only narrative. The production is reported to have cost between $175 million and $200 million, closer to the latter — making it the most expensive project A24 has ever fully financed, and the biggest title ever shopped at a film or TV market.
A24 built its reputation on mid-budget auteur pieces — Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Zone of Interest — so a production approaching a quarter of a billion dollars is a leap of a different order entirely. It says how highly the studio rates the pull of FromSoftware’s dark fantasy.
To spread that risk, the studio has brought in a partner with very deep pockets. Amazon MGM Studios has acquired a swathe of international pay-1 streaming rights in a deal reportedly worth tens of millions, with speculation that it could lead to activations on Amazon’s Twitch platform.
Why Buyers Can Only Read It Under Supervision
The secrecy around the production rivals a Marvel release. Ahead of next month’s American Film Market in Los Angeles, A24 is flying staff directly to international buyers so that decision-makers can read the screenplay in supervised sessions — an industry first, according to reports. Certain sections are being withheld entirely to prevent spoilers.
The caution is not paranoia for its own sake. Studios have grown jumpy about leaks after scripts for major franchises surfaced online before release, and a 180-page document is an enormous spoiler surface — particularly for a story-driven game whose twists players guard fiercely.
Buyers at the market may also be treated to a dedicated presentation, which could include the very first footage from the film.
Kit Connor Leads the Journey Through the Lands Between
Plot details remain under wraps, but the same report confirms that Heartstopper star Kit Connor plays the protagonist — widely speculated to be a Tarnished warrior on a journey through the Lands Between, battling “impressive monsters and dragons” along the way.
Connor has been climbing steadily since Heartstopper, most recently appearing in the war drama Warfare, and the lead here places him among the most in-demand young British actors working today.
He is joined by Ben Whishaw, Cailee Spaeny, Tom Burke, Havana Rose Liu, Sonoya Mizuno, Jonathan Pryce, Nick Offerman and Peter Serafinowicz. Filming wrapped in July, with post-production now underway at Industrial Light & Magic.
The Elden Ring movie opens in cinemas and IMAX on 3 March 2028. If the reported runtime holds, it will test whether an audience raised on quick-fire streaming will still sit through a three-hour fantasy epic — and whether devotion to the source can survive that length without fatigue.
