The highly anticipated film adaptation of Orson Scott Card's beloved novel, Ender's Game, reaches theatres on November 1. The novel was published in 1985, and Card was hesitant about selling the film rights until 1996, when he co-founded Fresco Pictures. He began working on the screenplay himself, and submitted it to Warner Brothers in 2003. Since then, the script has gone through several rewrites, both with and without Card, until the project landed at Odd Lot Entertainment in 2009. In 2011 the project was picked up by Summit Entertainment for distribution, with director Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) at the helm using his own screenplay. Card has remained onboard in a minimal role, acting as a co-producer in the very early stages of development. Needless to say, fans of the book have been waiting a long time to see Ender's time at the Battle School on the big screen, and the overall reaction to the film so far seems to be cautious optimism. Some worry that the book is simply too complicated for a faithful adaptation, others point out that Hood's biggest project to date has been X-Men Origins, which was hated by fans and critics alike. To be fair, we haven't seen much from the film, as marketing seems to be off to a slow start (likely to avoid any conflict with the blockbusters of the summer), though we can expect more trailers and TV spots to appear in the next couple months before the film's release. In the meantime, I thought this would be a good time to take the little we
do know about the film, and compare it to some aspects of the novel that may be harder to adapt for the screen. I've recently re-read Ender's Game, and found 5 awesome things from the book that unfortunately might not see the light of day on November 1...
Warning! Major Spoilers for Ender's Game will follow. Please don't read this post if you haven't read the book, and don't want aspects of the film ruined for you.