Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 7:00AM Kurtzman and Orci Producing 'Ender's Game' Adaptation
A big screen adaptation of Orson Scott Card's sci-fi novel Ender's Game has been floating around Hollywood for a while. Virtually since the book was written in '85. But, things got serious this September when it was reported that director Gavin Hood would be developing an adaptation from a script Card himself had written. Hood planned to direct, take a crack at rewriting the script himself, and the company Odd Lot Entertainment would be producing.
Well, according to Twitter last night, the project is moving forward as planned and now with two additional producers that seem to have their hands in everything big budget sci-fi of late: Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.
Kurtzman and Orci started out writing for television and hopped aboard the J.J. Abrams' train pretty earlier (although I'm not sure how they missed out on Lost). Once they took their talents to the big screen, they found a friend in Michael Bay before reuniting with Abrams again on the Star Trek reboot. While I'm not a fan of everything the pair have been a part of, they do know their way around a big budget sci-fi flick. And, the projects of theirs I haven't been so fond of, my beef wasn't really with the writing.
Director Gavin Hood is the wildcard here. The South African filmmaker can deliver one powerful indie, but his first foray into blockbuster territory was the horrendous X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Hopefully this marriage of director and producing duo will be a perfect fit as Kurtzman & Orci, who are used to playing with all the big boy toys, can reign Hood in and allow him to focus on telling the best story he can. Now the next thing we can worry about is the casting of Ender...
As far as the story goes, here's the plot description from the book:
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the cut-young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender’s skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
(I would like some @boborci.)
Reader Comments (2)
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I'm nervous about this one for a few reasons. One is, it's a great book. Two, it involves young children (younger than Battle Royale) doing some very violent things. Can't help but wonder how that will go.