Set photos from the upcoming A24 Elden Ring film adaptation have been leaking like crazy this week. First, we got a look at a Church of Marika from someone who just happened to be moseying through a field where the set people had plopped it down. Now, more clips of filming are sneaking out that show delightful sights like the Loathesome Dung Eater being publicly executed and pelted with food scraps, what seems to be Queen Marika herself walking through a town, and most shocking of all for a FromSoftware universe: a town that’s crowded with actual, regular, normal, living people.
You can find all these leaked videos on UnBoxPHD’s YouTube channel. They’re all pretty short, with the longest clocking in at just over a minute. There’s this incredible scene of a load of elaborately dressed townspeople bombarding the Dung Eater (literally the Worst Guy) with food scraps at his execution, a moment we only see briefly in the introduction to Elden Ring. I love the costumes here, especially the women’s hats — what’s that red, vase-like one? Delightful.
Then we have a few clips of what is almost certainly Queen Marika striding through the set in a billowy blue dress, trademark long gold braids, and eccentric gold shoes. But my absolute favorite clip here is this one:
It’s literally just a market scene. There’s nothing to indicate what event is taking place here or why there’s a bustling market in the Elden Ring movie, nor can I see at a glance any critical characters wandering through here. But what I love so much about this scene is how full of life it is. Elden Ring and, in fact, most FromSoftware games, largely take place after the apex of the civilizations they take place in. By the time the main character gets there, no busy markets like this exist anymore. Most people you run into are just crusty husks clinging to life on a rock somewhere, have transformed into heinous monsters bent on destroying anything they see, or are just weird and elusive and magical. These are just…people going about their daily business! I love it!
What does that mean for the Elden Ring film? It’s hard to say just yet. It’s likely this scene is tied into the Dung Eater execution scene above, meaning this all could just be one big flashback sequence that lasts for only a few seconds. Alternatively, this could indicate we’ll be seeing more in the Elden Ring film of what the world was like before the Shattering, when the various deities and heroes of Elden Ring legends were active and hadn’t rotted away into corpse-like shadows living in crumbling castles. It’s always been difficult for me to imagine Elden Ring’s world during that period of time, given what we see of the ruins and how long it’s seemingly been in that state, so I’m excited at the prospect of having a film help me envision it, even if only briefly. I hope this doesn’t mean we’re getting an Elden Ring devoid of Weird Little Freaks, but I also seriously doubt that’s the case given how critical those guys are to the whole vibe of the world.
We’ve been seeing a lot of the Elden Ring film lately, and not just because of leaks. Director Alex Garland has been making the interview rounds, there was a major casting announcement earlier this week, and we’ve also just learned the planned release date: March 3, 2028. Now with these set videos, I think I need to go back to the cast list and take a second stab at guessing which actor is playing which character. I…think I might have been right about Emma Laird?