Wolfgang Petersen Off 'Ender's Game', but Movie's Still Not Dead
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, RumorMonger
I talked a little while ago about Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged being essentially unfilmable (but about to start filming anyway). I could kvetch for hours about how unfilmable Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is, and how ill-fated any potential adaptation would be. Apparently Wolfgang Petersen, long attached to direct the project, has decided that he agrees -- or, more likely, he's just tired of waiting for the thing to get off the ground. According to sci-fi blog io9, Petersen is officially off the long-in-the-works Ender's Game movie, but the producers are busy looking for a new director and mulling casting possibilities.If you listen to the new audiobook version of the novel, Card talks at length in his postscript about his vision for the movie, and his fears of how it could go wrong. One reassuring thing is that at least at the time he recorded the audiobook, Card was insistent on keeping Ender's age the same as in the book (6-9) despite Hollywood producers' fervent desire to make him a teenager and give him a love interest. Okay: but can you imagine a young child actor speaking the erudite dialogue of the novel's super-smart prepubescents? Some adult actors couldn't pull it off. Either the tone of the book or the ages of the characters have to be jettisoned -- I just don't see a way around it. Arguably making matters worse is that in writing the screenplay Card also decided to combine Ender's Game with Ender's Shadow, a sequel telling the same story from the point of view of an even younger and even smarter supporting character.
I had been assuming that the adaptation would just linger in development hell forever, but apparently it's still moving toward an early 2009 filming start despite Petersen's departure. I'm curious and worried.
[hat tip: Slashfilm]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-22-2008 @ 12:31AM
get Fincher said...
A Beowolf style movie is the only way this can be done. The emotional complexity requires older actors to portray the children.
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4-22-2008 @ 12:50AM
Eugene Novikov said...
Doesn't that sound awful though? Kind of creepy, even?
6-09-2008 @ 4:25PM
TaxExemPt said...
a Beowulf style movie might be the only way to retain a proper ethnic mix in the cast.
7-16-2008 @ 11:40AM
CaptHowdy said...
wow, thats actually not a bad idea. that would solve many issues and at the same time give us the special effects of the battleroom that we all feel will be poorly portrayed in a live action film. nice thinking.
4-22-2008 @ 12:12PM
Dustin said...
Thats the problem with visuals in a movie, be it animated or not. You use what you know and seeing a relatively young person be extremely talent in both mind and body wouldn't work. It would appear silly, and unreal.
When I read the books, I never pictured him young, i just saw a boy, so having a teenage young male play him would be the safest bet.
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5-22-2008 @ 6:38PM
Carl said...
Unfortunately, any way you slice it it will likely not be true to the books it is portraying. Once again, here is the beauty of the book vs, the movie.
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6-24-2008 @ 4:49PM
Mark Loudermilk said...
My daughter is 9 and scored in the top 2 percent of the country for kids her age in language and writing. She won the school spelling bee (private school) as a third grader. The school goes through 6'th grade. It is possible to find enough young children to play the roles correctly. This should be made into a full scale MOVIE. Not animation.
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7-06-2008 @ 2:21PM
Darth Physicist said...
Finding a kid smart enough is different than a one that can act mature (which in fact requires being mature on some level). Even Kirstin Dunst is hard to believe at times in Interview with a Vampire, and that was some of the best adult level acting by a child ever. Imagine how hard it must have been for them to get her scenes right, now add a whole cast of child actors. I think it needs to be children doing the acting, but I don't see any way they can pull it off. The teenage bit would be too offensive to the fans of the book, and while that might bring box office numbers (which is what Hollywood cares about really), it would alienate the hard core fans. But then again, money talks.
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