spiderman123
Member
Enders Game is once again a viable AAA film property, but its questionable whether a new film would be good for the property.
Summit Entertainment announced last week that theyve obtained the rights to Enders 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).
Enders 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 hes 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 Summits 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 werent hacks, but they were no Radcliffe and Watson) or that the production values were a bit low - about $37m for the first film.
That wont cut it for Enders Game. With the special effects and vast amount of weightless choreography, if this film doesnt cost at least $150m, theyre 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 Enders 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 theyd 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. Enders Game is the first and last book in Enders 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 hes 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 Cards Ender story-world is Enders Shadow, the story of Bean, the smallest kid in Battle School, who later becomes a major, yet silent, driving force of history. Its still not really a childrens story, as it has even more of the violence, and terrible treatment of children than Enders 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 Im not sure I trust Summit to follow the right course. As much as I love Enders Game, Im sort-of hoping this attempt dies in development hell, as every past attepts to make an Enders Game film has done.
Source:http://www.tgdaily.com/entertainment/55673-will-ender%25E2%2580%2599s-game-make-a-good-film-franchise