Ender's Game (film)

[X-SOLDIER]

It looks like they've offered the role of Ender, and this is actually going to happen.

Asa Butterfield, the 14-year old title star of Martin Scorsese’s 3D film Hugo, has been offered the title role in Ender’s Game, the Odd Lot Entertainment adaptation of the Orson Scott Card science fiction novel. Summit Entertainment will release the film March 15, 2013. Gavin Hood, who helmed Tsotsi and Wolverine, is directing. Ender’s Game is a seminal futuristic novel that Card originated as a short story in 1977 and then turned into a 1985 book that won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and spawned a series. The storyline begins on Earth after an alien attack, when gifted children are recruited by a government desperate to fight back. The kids are taught a competitive game that’s a cross between the Quidditch matches of Harry Potter and the Jedi light saber battles from Star Wars. Only the best and brightest will be chosen. A young boy emerges as a genius strategist, and the planet’s best hope to destroy the alien Formic race.

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are producing through their K/O Paper Products banner, along with Odd Lot’s Gigi Pritzker and Linda McDonough, the author and Lynn Hendee. Digital Domain is also an equity partner. Butterfield, who’s repped by CAA and UK-based Independent, also starred in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and Son of Rambow. He was among several young actors who met for that Ender role, and signs look good that he’ll be the film’s star.

Paramount opens Hugo November 23.

Fingers crossed that this gets a faithful adaptation.


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[Strangelove]

I remember enjoy Ender's Game despite only going half way through it, but finding out what a religious nutjob Card is kind of put me off reading the rest. Maybe I just need to divorce the author's life and his works better.

Also, weren't there a bunch of naked kids in space in the book?

 

[Ⓐaron]

Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are good novels, but pretty much everything he's written (that I've read, anyway) is mediocre at best and terrible at worst. The fact that the filmmakers are describing the children's battle game as "a cross between Quidditch and Jedi lightsaber battles" is kind of worrisome, as it doesn't really resemble either (I guess the fact that it's in three dimensions is kind of Quidditch-like, but other than that, not really). But I guess you need dumbed-down metaphors for the filmgoing populace.

I don't remember the "naked kids in space" part, although admittedly I last read the book about seven years ago. Ender does beat someone up in the shower after that person attacked him, which is kind of weird, but whatever.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are good novels, but pretty much everything he's written (that I've read, anyway) is mediocre at best and terrible at worst. The fact that the filmmakers are describing the children's battle game as "a cross between Quidditch and Jedi lightsaber battles" is kind of worrisome, as it doesn't really resemble either (I guess the fact that it's in three dimensions is kind of Quidditch-like, but other than that, not really). But I guess you need dumbed-down metaphors for the filmgoing populace.

I don't remember the "naked kids in space" part, although admittedly I last read the book about seven years ago. Ender does beat someone up in the shower after that person attacked him, which is kind of weird, but whatever.

I'm not sure as though that's a quote from the filmmakers, or just the site it was posted on tbh. Ender's Game was the only one I read (when I was ~12), and that was LONG before I knew anything about Card, and I remember that I quite enjoyed it.

There's one scene where Ender fights a kid in the shower, because it puts him at a tactical advantage against the other kid.


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[Max Payne]

Didn't we go over this one before?

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I could SWEAR we did too, but I searched, and there wasn't any topic on it.


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[HylianMogget]

Oh wow, I remember hearing about there being the possibility of a movie, like, years ago - I never thought there'd actually end up being any progress. Card's a wacko, but Ender's Game is still a good book. It's been a while since I read it, but I don't really remember thinking "lightsabers!" at any point about the battles . I'd be more interested in how they're gonna depict the fantasy game-thing, though - from what I remember it was fairly important (and kind of trippy).

 

[Winter]

agreeing about card but god dammit i fucking loved the book ender's game

if this movie sucks ass i will scream and throw things

 

[Max Payne]

I prefer Enders Shadow tbh.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Shadow I guess was a decent book, although I don't remember much about it. I don't remember anything about the sequels apart from that he has some of the kids get married at an absurdly young age, so they can't have been very memorable.

 

[Max Payne]

Bean is a better and more interesting protagonist than Ender in my book.

Too bad the story in those books got stupid in later issues.

 

[Ⓐaron]

I remember him having a pretty difficult existence having to fend for himself on the streets, which is a pretty interesting origin story. I don't really remember anything about the book that diverges from Ender's Game after his origin story, though. Ender had a somewhat difficult existence dealing with his brother, but certainly nothing on the scale Bean had to deal with.

But yeah, I do remember there being some stupid crap in the sequels. There was some pretty stupid crap in Xenocide and Children of the Mind too. That must have been around the time Card became a religious nutjob.

 

[Max Payne]

I was referring to the sequels to Ender's Shadow

But I won't disagree with you there.

 

[Ⓐaron]

I was referring to the sequels to Shadow too, apart from my reference to Xenocide and Children of the Mind. I don't remember much about the Shadow sequels, but I remember not finding them very plausible.

 

[Hisako]

I studied Ender's Game during high school. To be honest, I sort of thought that even though Ender decided to go on his quest across the stars or something the book felt like a self-contained story that didn't really need any more expanding.

Also, those kids were fucking grimdark for a bunch of kids, . Trained to beat the shit out of each other like professional killers. Also, yes, a lot of nakedness, although I always connected all of the above to the idea that Ender's Game was some sort of retrospective on child soldiers or something.

I'd like this thing to be done properly, but chances are it won't. It'd be a shame, too, since even the action scenes (if you could call them that) were fairly cerebral.

 

[Madame Mayor]

I've only ever read the short story, but I loved it.

 

[Interslicery]

So no ones posted this yet? Weird.

Star of the upcoming film Hugo got the role of Ender: http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2011/11/hugo-kid-will-be-your-enders-game-kid.phpl

 

[X-SOLDIER]

...That's what the first post is, Inter.




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[Alex]

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are producing

This movie is fucking doomed from the outset.

There's no reason to be getting your hopes up people.

 

[Interslicery]

...That's what the first post is, Inter.




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........

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Via io9's Morning Spoiler's summary: http://io9.com/5870330/harrison-for...ead-the-parade-of-enders-game-casting-updates

• Harrison Ford has reportedly been cast as Colonel Hyram Graff, who is in charge of training Ender Wiggin and the rest of the recruits.
• Abigail Breslin of Little Miss Sunshine and Zombieland fame has reportedly signed on as Ender's older sister Valentine Wiggin.
• Hailee Steinfeld of True Grit is now all but confirmed as Petra Arkanian, Ender's most trusted ally.

This means we're a Chloe Meretz short of this movie featuring every major child actress currently working. The rest of the child cast has reportedly been filled with Rendition's Aramis Knight as Bean, Hannah Montana costar Moises Arias as Bonzo, Let Me In's Jimmy "Jax" Pinchak as Ender's eldest sibling Peter Wiggin, Suraj Parthasarathy, Away We Go actor Conor Carroll as Bernard, and Khylin Rhambo as Dink.

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[Hisako]

Guaranteed talent, but can the writers handle it proper?


hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Ender's Game (via io9)

Co-producer Roberto Orci discusses the visual influences of director Gavin Hood (who previously did X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but try not to hold that against him):

One thing I can tell you is that Gavin Hood is a gigantic Stanley Kubrick fan, and it shows. And yet, in some of the Zero G battles, things are going on that Kubrick never had a chance to tackle. The technology and advancements in film making available to us allowed us to realize a vision that is totally unique and modern while also being, as Harrison Ford calls it, one of the most emotional science fiction movies he has ever seen.

He also has some glowing praise for Hood's script:

This is the first movie with a pre-existing fan base I have worked on that I didn't write. This means I that got the chance to evaluate the material merely as a fan. Gavin's script made me jealous, but it was also a relief that he had satisfied what I would want as a fan from a difficult adaptation. Also, I have never worked with so many talented young actors who became friends so fast under such amazing circumstances.

via: First Showing

Here's some more from Orci:

The relationship between Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) and Ender (Asa Butterfield) is key to the movie's success. Graff would love nothing more than to be Ender's friend, yet Graff can't always show it because he has to make it clear to Ender that in the event of another alien invasion, there will be no one available to help him. Their relationship is simultaneously heartbreaking and fun...Like the book, the movie Ender's Game is about young protagonists dealing with one of the most adult situations known to man: WAR. We don't soft peddle it, yet we don't shy away from the fun of being in space and learning amazing new skills that we would all want to learn at any age.

You can read more on The Ender's Game Blog.



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[Obsidian Fire]

*sigh* I just hope they don't try to make this Politically Correct. It's one of the reasons I like the book so much.

 

[Ghost X]

Is this the ender's game where

Spoiler

a person is actually doing everything he thinks is a simulation or something like that

. If so, I hope they make this movie in a way that I will find enjoyable even though I know the ending.