Hollywood has entertained the idea of adapting Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game for decades, but the conceptually rich narrative presented all sorts of obstacles. The success of similarly layered science-fiction like The Hunger Games, however, helped kick the doors at major studios open a little more than usual, which explains why Gavin Hood is busily adapting Game to the big screen, with an eye toward a November 2013 release.
In preparation, EW ran the first official photo of Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield on the set. The young Hugo star plays Ender, a recruit in an adolescent army who is trained at a futuristic (and controversial) Battle School by Colonel Graff (Ford). Here’s the first look at their characters.
Hood tells the magazine, “The relationship between [Harrison] and Asa was very close, but he didn’t overly befriend him off the set. He helped Asa by allowing that slight sense of intimidation to be there.”
In Card’s novel, the Launchies – or troops – are recruited at a very young age and trained for years. Obviously Hood had to make a few changes to fit the author’s narrative into one movie. But he promises that he is a fan of the book, and fought hard to keep the movie in line with Card’s vision … particularly when it comes to the story’s dark ending.
“That ending — and the complex moral questions that it raises — is one of the reasons why I love the book, ” says Hood. “I promise you that it is very much there.”
Earlier, Lionsgate released another Ender’s Game image that shows the emotion-monitoring chips implanted in each recruit. We have that here.
Ender’s Game will be in theaters on Nov. 1, 2013. If you’ve read the book, does it feel like Hood, Butterfield and Ford are on the right track?
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