Hollywood just made its boldest video game bet yet. A24, the studio that turned indie prestige into box office gold, has officially confirmed the full cast for its live-action adaptation of Elden Ring, one of the most beloved games ever made.
And the name that has fans most excited is Cailee Spaeny, the 27-year-old actress who has spent the last two years becoming impossible to ignore. She joins Kit Connor and Ben Whishaw in what is shaping up to be one of the most ambitious fantasy films of the decade.
Directed by Alex Garland and shot entirely in IMAX, the film is set to release on March 3, 2028. With a budget reportedly well over $100 million, this is not A24 playing it safe. This is A24 swinging for the fences.
What We Know About Alex Garland’s Elden Ring Adaptation
The story is set in the Lands Between, a world where the powerful Elden Ring has been shattered and its shards divided among corrupted demigods. That foundation comes directly from the game, which was built on worldbuilding by none other than George R. R. Martin, the creator of Game of Thrones.
Garland is a longtime fan of the game and reportedly made a personal pitch for the project, suggesting a level of investment that could prove crucial when navigating such unwieldy material. This was not a director handed an assignment. He went after it.
As a fan of the games, Garland intends to approach the adaptation with a specific level of tact, making it more likely he will honour the games’ established lore on the big screen. For a fanbase that runs deep and takes its lore seriously, that distinction matters enormously.
According to Screendaily, principal photography began in April 2026, filming on location in the United Kingdom, including Scotland, with scenes in Iceland planned for the summer. The budget is stated to be well over $100 million, and filming is expected to last around 100 days.
Cailee Spaeny’s Role in the Elden Ring Movie Cast
No specific character details have been confirmed for Spaeny yet. But her presence alone conveys the tone Garland is going for.
Whether she is playing Priscilla Presley or the lead in Alien: Romulus, Spaeny has something for everyone. She is a young star in a Hollywood apparatus that has failed to develop young stars outside the franchise model. Elden Ring gives her both: the weight of a prestige auteur project and the scale of a blockbuster.
This is also a reunion that feels intentional. Spaeny was in Garland’s philosophical sci-fi series Devs as tech genius Lyndon, and starred in Garland’s intense gut-punch of a film, Civil War. That is two collaborations before Elden Ring. Garland clearly trusts her in a way he does not trust most actors.
Spaeny herself has spoken about what makes working with Garland different. “He knows that he is only as strong as the crew that he’s working with, and that’s what makes his collaboration process so gratifying. He puts so much trust not only in his actors, but the crew around him.” That kind of creative trust tends to produce career-defining performances.
The Full Elden Ring Cast: Kit Connor, Ben Whishaw, and the Ensemble
The Elden Ring movie cast is stacked in a way that feels deliberate rather than decorative. Connor will be joined by Ben Whishaw, Cailee Spaeny, Tom Burke, and Havana Rose Liu. Each name carries serious dramatic credibility.
The full ensemble also includes Sonoya Mizuno, Jonathan Pryce, Ruby Cruz, Nick Offerman, John Hodgkinson, Emma Laird, Jefferson Hall, and Peter Serafinowicz. That is a cast capable of carrying an ensemble fantasy epic with real emotional weight behind it.
Garland has worked with several of these actors before. Nick Offerman and Sonoya Mizuno both appeared in Devs alongside Spaeny. Kit Connor was also previously rumored to be reuniting with Garland following Warfare. This is not a random assembly. It is a company of collaborators.
Peter Rice is set to produce alongside Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich from DNA, as well as George R. R. Martin and Vince Gerardis. Martin’s involvement as producer adds another layer of lore accountability to the project.
How Big Is the Elden Ring Source Material?
It is worth pausing to understand just what Garland is adapting here. Since its release, Elden Ring has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and received over 400 Game of the Year awards. It ranks among the highest-rated games of all time, had one of the biggest debuts in Twitch history, and was one of the most searched games on Google, solidifying its place as both a commercial success and a cultural phenomenon. Its global community remains highly active, producing lore analyses, boss guides, fan art, strategy builds, and uncovering hidden secrets.
That is a passionate, protective audience. They are not casual viewers who will show up for anything with the name attached. They will be watching every casting choice, every set photo, every trailer with an intensity that most studios never have to face.
The scale of this challenge cannot be overstated. Turning a player-driven epic into a coherent, feature-length narrative is a fundamentally tricky task because theatrical audiences cannot set their own pace. In the game, the mystery unfolds at the player’s speed. In a two-hour film, Garland has to make that mystery work for everyone.
What This Means for Spaeny and for A24 in 2028
A24 is likely to shatter its own studio record with Elden Ring, drawing on the source material’s immense fanbase. The studio set its previous record with Timothee Chalamet’s Marty Supreme, which grossed $180 million worldwide. An IMAX fantasy epic with a built-in global audience of tens of millions is a different proposition entirely.
For Spaeny, this completes a remarkable arc. Civil War earned $122.5 million against its $50 million budget, making it the most expensive movie ever produced by A24. Alien: Romulus then grossed $342.5 million worldwide against its $80 million budget. She has now anchored two of the most commercially successful films of the past two years. Elden Ring, with its far larger scale, could be the project that moves her into a category of her own.
The pieces are in place. The director is invested. The cast is exceptional. Millions believe the source material. Whether the film can honour all of that at once is the question March 2028 will finally answer.
