George RR Martin famously took inspiration for a scene in his Song of Ice and Fire books from the Black Dinner of 1440, an event in Scottish history where two noblemen—believing they were safe as guests at a dinner—were suddenly seized and executed without trial. Coincidentally, this took place at roughly the same time as Martin himself announced The Winds of Winter, his long-delayed penultimate book in the series that fans have been eagerly anticipating for a long, long time (okay, not since 1440, but since 2011, which is pretty much as long ago).
To be fair, old George has been up to all sorts while writing Winds, including helping create the lore and backstory for Elden Ring alongside FromSoft’s Hidetaka Miyazaki. Now, in a chat with IGN, he’s revealed that maybe there’s a chance the setting could make the leap to the silver screen. “Well, I can’t say too much about it, but there is some talk about making a movie out of Elden Ring,” said Martin.
“We’ll see if that comes to pass,” and what his “involvement” in the project would be, but Martin copped to the fact that there’s a pretty big obstacle to him getting too involved with a big-screen Elden Ring adaption. He’s really gotta get around to finishing this Winds of Winter thing.
“I’m a few years behind with my latest book,” said the author, “so that also limits the amount of things that I can do.”
“A few years” is a touch of an understatement: once upon a time, Martin hoped to have the book on store shelves before Game of Thrones’ sixth season aired all the way back in 2016. Which, ah, did not happen. I poke fun, but I get it. Martin’s world in ASOIAF is absurdly complicated and grows exponentially with every book. I don’t envy him the task of wrapping up his bajillions of plot threads, nor the legions of ‘fans’ who have taken to calling for his blood over Winds’ many delays. It’s an incredibly ugly aspect of the ASOIAF fanbase, and one that I imagine must add to the already immense pressure Martin is under.
I do question, though, the extent to which work on Winds really limits Martin’s involvement in anything, given that he’s written several books, helped make Elden Ring, and continued to work as an editor on the Wild Cards series since the last ASOIAF book came out in 2011. To be fair, maybe he’s grown as exhausted by the wait as his fans have, and he’s at the point where he’s properly knuckling down and forcing himself to get through the damn thing. When he’s not picking fights with HBO on his blog, anyway.
But hey, an Elden Ring movie? Sounds good, and I’d love to live in the world where Martin was free to work on it because he’d finally rolled that Sisyphean rock up that mountain. It’s something Miyazaki himself has seemed open to, telling the Guardian that FromSoft would need a “very strong partner” to make it happen. He should try throwing down a summon sign.