Somehow I missed Ender’s Game until last year. Immediately after reading it, however, the science fiction novel became one of my favorite genre stories and I was anxiously awaiting more news on the recently announced movie that was coming from Warner Brothers.
Well, more news has come, although not from WB. Ender’s Game author Orson Scott Card spoke with IGN and gave an update on his novel’s journey.
According to Uncle Orson, Ender’s Game has been put into turnaround at Warner Brothers, which means the studio won’t be holding onto the rights for much longer. For whatever reason, the studio is letting Ender go, which will allow the producers to shop the film around more. Card declared this to be a “good thing” and hinted that the production companies, Chartoff Productions and Fresco Pictures, might even try to raise funding independently.
With the turnaround comes other changes as well. Director Wolfgang Peterson, who had been attached to the project, is most likely off the project. While Card didn’t mention any director (nobody technically can be hired to direct until the project has funding again), he reflected that the director needs to be good with people since the majority of the cast is so young and will probably be unknown.
The other big change is that any studio-revised version of the script has been discarded, leaving only Card’s own script based both on his novel Ender’s Game and the alternate perspective of the same story, Ender’s Shadow. The author claims not to have read scripts by other writers, but states that he and the producers are “very happy” with the current iteration.
Other news in the interview mentions possible franchise directions for Ender’s Game, but let’s not put the cart before the horse. There’s no point discussing where the franchise could go until we get the initial movie, right?
It’s good to hear the movie is still moving, even if it’s a little backwards. It sounds like Card and the producers are a lot happier getting a second chance to make the movie the way they want to. I really want to see Ender’s Game succeed and am more than willing to wait a couple more years if that’s what it takes to bring a solid version of the novel to the big screen.
