Ender's Game Not Dead Yet
There has been talk about making a movie version of Orson Scott Card's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning book, Ender's Game, for years. While there is no definite schedule yet, IGN reports this week that Wolfgang Petersen has confirmed that he is indeed still attached to direct it.
Peterson (whose directing credits include Enemy Mine, Outbreak, Poseidon and Troy) was quoted at a press junket saying, "I'm just, at the moment, developing three science fiction films. Two for Columbia. The Grays, based on Whitley Strieber's book. The other is called Uprising. And the other is Ender's Game." Peterson also said that Ender's Game is "a very, very tricky adaptation and an incredibly fascinating concept, but I still think that one day, I will do Ender's Game. I just recently had a meeting with Orson Scott Card. But we're hanging in there and, yes, we will do that picture."
Cool! That sounds like a definite confirmation of potential plans to maybe someday get the film possibly done.
IMDB lists the movie as being in pre-production, but I'm just not getting the warm squishy feeling I get when I hear that a book I liked is getting the film treatment. Ender's Game is, of course, just the first book in that series that also includes Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant. Not all of those books are direct sequels, mind you; some tell the same story from a different character's perspective. I've read the first few books and they are quite different than Ender's Game, so, for readers looking to press on into the sequels, you are hereby warned.
If they do film Ender's Game, I believe that they will get the benefit of a larger-than-normal built-in audience. Unlike other adaptations which have only the science fiction fanbase to rely upon, Ender's Game is on the reading list for many schools across the country. It's likely that many more people have been exposed to the book than would have been otherwise, had they not been "forced" by their school curriculum. Kids today...they don't know how good they got it. <grumpy voice>In my day, they force fed us Wuthering Heights until we couldn't breathe and we liked it!</grumpy voice> Or, not.
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I just finished listening to the Ender's Shadow audio book. Orson Scott Card seems pretty heavily involved with these narration projects and at the end of each, gives 10-15 minutes of background and insights on the book.
For this book, he talked about nothing but the movie.
... How every movie studio / producer he'd negotiated with tried to make ender a 16 year old, so it could be a "date movie."
... How he eventually found and contracted with a Warner Brothers to keep Ender no older than 12.
... How the movie would be a hybrid of Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow.
... How he wasn't sure the movie could be pulled off until he saw the latest adaption of Peter Pan where there were multiple good performances from kids and he would need at least 6-8 great performances to pull of the movie.
This was likely 2006 when the book was made and lots of things change. But the insights were interesting.
And, FWIW, Card said that thought the ultimate presentation of his book was in audio format. Haven listened to all of the Ender's series on Audible.com, I think he might be right. They readers (multiple) he get's for these audio books are fantastic. Highly recommend it.