Right. So we’re really doing this. The A24 Elden Ring movie — directed by Alex Garland, backed by over $100 million, and somehow an actual thing that is happening in real life — is now actively filming. And because we live in the golden age of on-set leaks, footage is already making its rounds online. Some of it is exactly what you’d expect if you’ve played Elden Ring. Some of it is lettuce.
The Leak That Has the Whole Community Talking
The footage that’s currently breaking the internet comes from UnBoxPHD on YouTube/X, who’s been lurking around the London production location and capturing what they can. The clip in question? The execution of the Loathsome Dung Eater — one of Elden Ring’s most notoriously deranged characters — being hanged from a gallows as a crowd pelts him with what appears to be various vegetables. And yes, among the projectiles, there is absolutely a whole lettuce.
If you’ve played Elden Ring and sat through the opening cinematic, you know exactly this moment. The Tarnished narration kicks in, the camera pans across the Lands Between, and then suddenly there he is — the Loathsome Dung Eater, hanging limply from a gallows while assorted blurry projectiles sail past him. The game doesn’t specify what those projectiles are. Alex Garland’s movie has apparently decided: it’s vegetables. Specifically, a head of lettuce moving at an alarming velocity.
The costume design in the clip looks genuinely solid — the Dung Eater’s mask with its signature puckered detailing is present and accounted for, and it looks game-accurate rather than a lazy Hollywood interpretation. The production team clearly did their homework, which honestly shouldn’t be a surprise given Garland has reportedly played through Elden Ring seven times in preparation for this project.
What the Rest of the Leaks Are Telling Us
The Dung Eater footage isn’t the only thing that’s leaked from the Greenwich Naval College set in South London, where A24 is currently shooting. A separate series of images published by Shortlist shows a medieval-inspired environment with green screens that are almost certainly going to become the Erdtree in post-production. More interestingly, props spotted on location point directly to specific in-game areas — a crate labeled “Leyndell Streets” confirms the Royal Capital is in the film, and another labeled “Stormveil” strongly suggests Godrick the Grafted’s fortress is also getting the live-action treatment. There are also references pointing toward the Academy of Raya Lucaria appearing in the adaptation.
Then there’s the Marika situation. A blurry but unmistakable image — also captured by UnBoxPHD — appears to show Queen Marika on set, and if fan analysis of her costume is accurate (specifically her wearing both braids), it implies this is a young, pre-Shattering Marika. That’s a massive lore detail. In the game, Marika is long gone by the time the player arrives — her disappearance and the subsequent Shattering is what breaks the Elden Ring and kicks off the entire plot. Seeing her present and alive in the film means we’re going to get a glimpse of what the Lands Between looked like before everything went catastrophically wrong.
The Heartstopper actor Kit Connor has also been spotted on set, though he wasn’t in costume in the footage so his specific role hasn’t been confirmed yet. He’s listed among the film’s lead cast alongside Cailee Spaeny, Ben Whishaw, Tom Burke, Nick Offerman, Peter Serafinowicz, and Jonathan Pryce.
The Bigger Picture: A24 Is Not Playing Around
A24 officially announced the project back in May 2025, with Bandai Namco confirming the adaptation the following day. Since then, the details that have emerged have only made the project look more credible, not less. The budget is confirmed at well over $100 million — reportedly A24’s single largest and most ambitious project to date, surpassing even The Brutalist and Civil War. Principal photography is scheduled for around 100 days, which is already underway.
The production also has George R.R. Martin attached as a producer, which makes sense given he co-wrote Elden Ring’s foundational mythology alongside FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki, who is involved in the film “under guidance” capacity. The fact that the costume department appears to be working directly from FromSoftware reference materials — down to getting the Leyndell Knights’ armor silhouette right — suggests this isn’t a case of a studio buying a hot IP and immediately doing whatever they want with it.
From what the leaks are piecing together, the film looks set to take place during the pre-Shattering era, potentially covering events like the Night of the Black Knives in Leyndell — the event that started the chain reaction leading to the demigod wars and the eventual destruction of the Elden Ring itself. Whether the movie treats these events as a prologue or the main story is still unclear, but either approach could work brilliantly in Garland’s hands given how he handled layered, mythology-heavy narratives in Annihilation and Ex Machina.
And if you want to keep up with gaming universe adaptations and how franchises evolve from digital to real-world properties, we’ve been tracking similar shifts in the live-service space too — like how Microsoft is rapidly reshaping the Xbox Game Pass experience with new tiers and bundles in 2026, which shows just how much the gaming landscape is changing all at once.
The Fan Reaction Is Exactly What You’d Expect
Predictably, the community has gone completely feral — in the best way. A significant portion of the discourse is dedicated to whether Nick Offerman is playing the Dung Eater (nobody wants this to not be true), and the rest is split between people who are thrilled the adaptation looks lore-faithful and people who are chronically concerned that Hollywood will somehow fumble a $100 million FromSoftware movie. For what it’s worth, the leaked footage genuinely looks good — the production design has clearly been handled by people who understand the source material, which at this stage is the most you can really ask for.
Also, for the record: if the final film doesn’t include someone losing their mind over a flying head of lettuce the way the in-game narrator does, that’s a missed opportunity of historic proportions.
The Elden Ring movie is currently scheduled to release in cinemas — including IMAX — on March 3, 2028. Filming is ongoing, which means there are almost certainly more leaks incoming. Follow the updates here and check out our coverage on other big platform shifts happening in gaming right now, including the latest Xbox April 2026 updates that are quietly changing how console gaming works day to day. And if you’re into games with rich lore and update cycles worth tracking, our Sailor Piece Sea 2 guide is worth a look too.
