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[spiderman123]

Ender’s Game is once again a viable AAA film property, but it’s questionable whether a new film would be good for the property.

Summit Entertainment announced last week that they’ve obtained the rights to Ender’s Game with the intent to create another youth-driven series. The production company has recently been very successful with their youth-driven Twilight Saga, and is beginning work on The Hunger Games, which is based on a series of novels in the same vein as Twilight (coming of age story with mythological monsters mixed in).

Ender’s Game, an Orson Scott Card novel, is the story of Andrew Wiggin, a third-born child, in a world where multiple births are frowned upon.

When he’s recruited for tactical training (for which, he learns, he was born), he is discovered to be a great tactical genius, and he quickly rises through the ranks of the tactical school, along the way making friends and enemies of children from around the world, children who will one day be great leaders or generals in their home countries.

There are a few problems with Summit’s plan: First is the quality of films that summit has been producing.

Everyone who loved Twilight, loved it because they already loved the books, not really caring that the kids were only moderately talented (they weren’t hacks, but they were no Radcliffe and Watson) or that the production values were a bit low - about $37m for the first film.

That won’t cut it for Ender’s Game. With the special effects and vast amount of weightless choreography, if this film doesn’t cost at least $150m, they’re skimping.

In addition, the teenagers they find for this film need to be very talented. There are a lot of very difficult scenes to play out here, and especially the roles of Petra and Bean will be exceedingly challenging. The children also must be younger - 10 to 14 or so, increasing the challenge of locating good talent. All this is combined with the fact that Ender fans are going to be much more discerning than Twilight fans, as they are mostly sci-fi geeks who are accustomed to high production values.

Second, the story within the pages of Ender’s game is not really for children. It contains many scenes, including brutal, naked, child-on-child murder. These scenes are integral to the story, as they make a big part of who Ender becomes, but there is no way they’d be able to make a ‘youth-oriented’ film with such scenes. They either have to make the film counting on an R rating, which would cut their audience, or remove those scenes, which would drastically change the story, alienating fans of the book.

Finally, there is an issue with actually making it a series. Ender’s Game is the first and last book in Ender’s story which contains any real action sequences. The second book picks up with Ender as an adult, with no opportunity for stories taking place in-between, and the rest of the series is spent mostly in silent contemplation of the things he’s done, or in conversation with a sentient interplanetary computer network. There is nowhere for the story to go into a second film following Ender, so what could the sequel be?

The truly interesting story in Card’s Ender story-world is Ender’s Shadow, the story of Bean, the smallest kid in Battle School, who later becomes a major, yet silent, driving force of history. It’s still not really a children’s story, as it has even more of the violence, and terrible treatment of children than Ender’s story does, but at least it has a child protagonist, and lots of action.

What it comes down to is that there are a lot of ways to screw up this film and its subsequent franchise possibility, and I’m not sure I trust Summit to follow the right course. As much as I love Ender’s Game, I’m sort-of hoping this attempt dies in development hell, as every past attepts to make an Ender’s Game film has done.

Source:http://www.tgdaily.com/entertainment/55673-will-ender%25E2%2580%2599s-game-make-a-good-film-franchise

 

[badcrumble]

Eh. The Twilight films are a pretty good tongue-in-cheek spoof of the creepy misogyny of the books; hopefully this'll be able to do the same for the weird Hitler allegory of Ender's game. I'd love to see Verhoeven direct.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

How did this go from being in the hands of James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and now Summit. Uhhhhh today is off to a great start.

 

[ultron87]

Will this somehow move us closer to someone developing an actual Battle Room? Cause that would be the most fun thing ever.

 

[charsace]

Twilight movies are better than the books so I see no problem with them having the rights.

 

[Jokergrin]

 

[Rei_Toei]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

;_°

 

[Pinko Marx]

Cool, another shitty book gets made into a movie.

 

[twinturbo2]

Ender Wiggin isn't a sparkly vampire.

 

[Esiquio]

Oh no...noooooo NOOO!!!!! My heart DROPPED when I read this twenty seconds ago. I absolutely love Ender's Game, I read that book pretty much every year. This news is terrible, holy crap.

Edit:

Cool, another shitty book gets made into a movie.

Stay out of this thread, thanks.

 

[spiderman123]

Cool, another shitty book gets made into a movie.

I'm gonna facebook friend you, find out where you live and take a dump on your lawn.

 

[justin.au]

Cool, another shitty book gets made into a movie.

Spot on.

 

[Chojin]

I wonder why Summit has an obsession with Mormon writers.

 

[gdt]

Goddammit.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Cool, another shitty book gets made into a movie.

Clearly this man knows his stuff and is all about Ender's Shadow.

 

[twinturbo2]

I'm gonna facebook friend you, find out where you live and take a dump on your lawn.

Somebody tag this guy, please, it can't get any more awesome than that.

 

[dave is ok]

It'll never get made. Child actors suck.

Hopefully they get Jaden Smith to star in it

 

[Morn]

The second book picks up with Ender as an adult, with no opportunity for stories taking place in-between

What?

The most recent Ender book, Ender in Exile, takes place between Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead.

 

[The Technomancer]

*screams*

The most recent Ender book, Ender in Exile, takes place between Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead.

Mind you, Ender in Exile wasn't very good....you could tell it was being written specifically to fill in holes in the story.

 

[ChiTownBuffalo]

Well, hopefully they paid option rights a long time ago to Orson Scott Card so he gets nothing if the movie makes any money.

 

[spiderman123]

*screams*


Mind you, Ender in Exile wasn't very good....you could tell it was being written specifically to fill in holes in the story.

yah the Governor of Shakespeare thing kinda got me

 

[angelkimne]

'if this film doesn’t cost at least $150m, they’re skimping'

Crazy talk, Revenge of the Sith only cost $113 million and that's pretty much the epitome of high budget sci-fi, countless a-list actors and all. The 'Battle practice' scenes or whatever they're called would take some working, true, but apart from that I can't think of why it would be as expensive to pull it off as they imply.

The problem is finding some good child actors to play all the main parts, since the film basically rides on them. To be honest I can't imagine it working too great, but I didn't like the book that much either. Especially the ending.

 

[Morn]

Well, hopefully they paid option rights a long time ago to Orson Scott Card so he gets nothing if the movie makes any money.

OSC is a nutty Morman who doesn't like gays and he's demonized on GAF.

GRRM is a creepy pedo who likes incest with 13 year olds and he's worshiped on GAF.

 

[Toby]

Mind you, Ender in Exile wasn't very good....you could tell it was being written specifically to fill in holes in the story.

Truth. Exile was a waste of time.
I love the book, but I don't think I want a movie.

 

[Althane]

OSC is a nutty Morman who doesn't like gays and he's demonized on GAF.

GRRM is a creepy pedo who likes incest with 13 year olds and he's worshiped on GAF.

Wait, what was that about GRRM?

 

[badcrumble]

Wait, what was that about GRRM?

He sexualizes children in his books, apparently, which doesn't happen whatsoever in the Ender series.

 

[JordanLMiller]

Cool, another shitty book gets made into a movie.

Yup. I don't understand the praise the book gets.

 

[Pandaman]

isn't this the book where a couple of kids became majour political figures by blogging alot?

because if it is, its in the right hands.

 

[gdt]

Mind you, Ender in Exile wasn't very good....you could tell it was being written specifically to fill in holes in the story.

I enjoyed it alot actually, but yeah, it was filling holes.

 

[Freyjadour]

OSC is a nutty Morman who doesn't like gays and he's demonized on GAF.

GRRM is a creepy pedo who likes incest with 13 year olds and he's worshiped on GAF.

"I can't tell the difference between things written in a book and public statements of opinions in real life."

 

[ChiTownBuffalo]

OSC is a nutty Morman who doesn't like gays and he's demonized on GAF.

GRRM is a creepy pedo who likes incest with 13 year olds and he's worshiped on GAF.

I've stated on GAF that I think GRRM probably drives a white van.

And is you want to look in a very skewed way. GRRM want to love everyone. OSC, not so much.

 

[Goro Majima]

The problem is finding some good child actors to play all the main parts, since the film basically rides on them. To be honest I can't imagine it working too great, but I didn't like the book that much either. Especially the ending.

This is largely my concern as well since the average age of the principals is what? 7...8?

Ender's Game is one of those books that probably should remain just a book though.

 

[TouchMyBox]

isn't this the book where a couple of kids became majour political figures by blogging alot?

because if it is, its in the right hands.

More akin to internet forums, not unlike GAF.

 

[The Technomancer]

isn't this the book where a couple of kids became majour political figures by blogging alot?

because if it is, its in the right hands.

It was written when the idea of an Internet was still a theoretical "idea", and no-one could have envisioned that it would turn into what it did. OSC painted a version which was rife with intelligent discussion from both powerful figures and the common man concerned with their future. Kind of a nice dream.

Also, I never bought the Hitler argument, unless the idea was that if Hitler ever actually got to talk to a jewish person he would realize how terrible his acts were.

 

[ultron87]

Also, I guess since it's a movie they won't be able to trust the audience to pick up any subtext. So they'll have to add an after-credits scene will just be a line of text that says "He's Hitler!"

 

[Hot Coldman]

Also, I guess since it's a movie they won't be able to trust the audience to pick up any subtext. So they'll have to add an after-credits scene will just be a line of text that says "He's Hitler!"

 

[Zenith]

Eh. The Twilight films are a pretty good tongue-in-cheek spoof of the creepy misogyny of the books; hopefully this'll be able to do the same for the weird Hitler allegory of Ender's game. I'd love to see Verhoeven direct.

There is no Hitler allegory.

 

[Count Dookkake]

Eh. The Twilight films are a pretty good tongue-in-cheek spoof of the creepy misogyny of the books; hopefully this'll be able to do the same for the weird Hitler allegory of Ender's game. I'd love to see Verhoeven direct.

Yes.

YES.

YES.

 

[dave is ok]

There is no Hitler allegory.

I think the Nazi allegory theories are kind of a stretch up until the point where he flees to a planet where everyone speaks Portuguese.

 

[Jarmel]

Not necessarily good news but not inherently bad either.

 

[shaowebb]

Twilight producers...doing Ender's Game.

...

 

[demon]

I don't think it's anywhere near a literacy masterpiece but it was a very enjoyable read, and I think overcoming a couple hurdles it could be turned into an awesome movie. Never seen the Twilight movies so I can't really comment on that.

 

[spiderman123]

I don't think it's anywhere near a literacy masterpiece but it was a very enjoyable read, and I think overcoming a couple hurdles it could be turned into an awesome movie. Never seen the Twilight movies so I can't really comment on that.

I've never seen too but if the CGI looks like anything I saw in the trailer, I'll jump into a tank of sharks.

 

[Discotheque]

Verhoeven's name gets attached to every sci-fi/whatever genre project (as it should be) but sadly it's never likely.

I see this going to some third-rate shit like that dude who made Underworld

 

[StormyTheRabbit]

(As much as I enjoy Ender's Game and hate OSC as a person)

PLEASE JUST MAKE THIS MOVIE AND EVEN IF IT IS BAD PLEASE LET ANOTHER STUDIO MAKE SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD.

I mean OSC is a little sleezy in real life, but I enjoyed his book. Thats why I always tell people who get interested in the series to get them from a library and not directly support him.

And I personally loved Ender's Game. It blew my mind my senior year of high school. But then I read Speaker For The Dead, which I think took everything to such a whole new level. It was an awesome take as to how humans would deal with finding the first sentient alien race.

Ender in Exile was a fun read, but definitely filler.

I haven't read any of the other spinoffs. Any good?

 

[Adent]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

;_°

Yeah were is that pic! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

So what now well have to spoiler tag the twist?

 

[Acid08]

Cool, another shitty book gets made into a movie.

HEY FUCK YOU.

 

[Cyan]

I think the Nazi allegory theories are kind of a stretch up until the point where he flees to a planet where everyone speaks Portuguese.

Because they speak a lot of Portuguese in Argentina, amirite?

 

[KJTB]

This was one of my favorite books back in the day... Maybe at least the movie will get more attention?

...

D: