Harrison Ford Wanted, Asa Butterfield Confirmed For ENDER'S GAME

This summer's Cowboys & Aliens was the first taste of science fiction for Harrison Ford in the two decades since he starred in two of the biggest sci-fi properties of all time in Blade Runner and the Star Wars trilogy respectively. The question now for Summit Entertainment is.... has he found a new fancy for the genre again? Variety reports that Ford is being courted by director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) for a role in his sci-fi tentpole Ender's Game, a Summit Entertainment adaptation Orson Scott Card€™s 1985 Hugo/Nebula Award-winning novel about a future Earth which is at war with an isectoid race known as the Formics. Ford is being courted to play the adult lead role of Colonel Hyrum Graff, the Commander of Training for the International Fleet of Ender, a group of children being trained into military commanders. Hugo's Asa Butterfield is now confirmed as Andrew/Ender Wiggin, the title role. A release date of March 15, 2013, so it's full steam ahead for production to begin next year. Hood has developed his take on Ender's Game with Star Trek and Transformers writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who will act as producers. Kurtzman and Orci also wrote the script for Cowboys & Aliens and it was probably their suggestion to go after Ford. It appears their original choice was Viggo Mortensen but he turned them down, as he has every franchise offer that has been put his way since The Lord of the Rings ended. Variety don't go so far as saying the offer is on the table for Ford (they say he is just one of a few veteran actors being looked out) but it is certainly implied. It will be a lucrative deal... Summit have major money behind them from the Twilight franchise and are looking to reinvest in a bunch of new properties and are high on Ender's Game... but it will be one that will be for a number of movies. Ender's Game is currently just one of a massive twelve novel epic that is still being added too and is ever evolving. For Summit, at the very least a film trilogy is planned here. Will Ford have the enthusiasm for this? He doesn't lend his name to blockbusters often and he hates the publicity, the press rounds and everything else that goes with them. Cowboys & Aliens was a rarity outside of the Indiana Jones franchise for him but at the same time he has had ten years worth of flops outside of the whip and not even Cowboys & Aliens could make some money so he could see this as a huge opportunity for him for guaranteed money over the next decade.