Immediately after the announcement that Garland would be working on the Elden Ring film, he admitted that he is a fan of FromSoftware games. It seems these were not just words.
According to The New Yorker, in order to get the job of director and screenwriter, Garland prepared a 160-page draft of the script, supplemented by 40 pages of concept art. After that, he went to Japan and personally presented his ideas to Hidetaka Miyazaki.
It is worth noting that this is not the only example of dedication to the project: in June 2025, Garland confessed that he had played the original 2022 game many times.