A24’s Elden Ring film adaptation reportedly has a production budget of $200 million, which more than doubles the previous highest budget for a movie by the usually indie-focused studio. Scary, but there’s something even scarier casting a shadow over the project.

The chaotic Timothée Chalamet-led Marty Supreme was A24’s biggest-budget movie to date, with $70 million allocated to its production. Those are already impressive enough numbers for a movie about people playing table tennis, but that money was being put into the kind of movie A24 already had vast experience in making.

But the reported $200 million figure for a video game adaptation of a massive period piece that requires heavy visual effects to give moviegoers the type of immersion comparable to that of the game? That’s a whole new beast.

And the budget juggling itself isn’t even what’s scaring me the most. A24 has put out incredible movies in the past, but the studio has been through a very alarming change as of late.…