Summit Entertainment has scored the rights to Orson Scott Card‘s Ender’s Game, which will be adapted by Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) into a live-action film. Hood will be writing the screenplay and directing, and Card will be among the producers. Now that Summit’s Twilight franchise is ending, will this be their next successful youth-driven series? And will this provide some competition against Lionsgate‘s adaptation of The Hunger Games?
Ender’s Game, which is about gifted children recruited by the government to fight back against an alien invasion and not in a fun happy Power Rangers way but a squicky, uncomfortable Neon Genesis Evangelion way, features characters younger than those in Twilight and The Hunger Games. Kind of, age-wise, where the Harry Potter series began. There is considerable psychological torture and moments of incredible violence. So, the likelyhood of the characters getting aged up? It’s Hollywood, so there’s always that chance, but perhaps not with Card in the producer’s circle.
This isn’t the first time a movie has been discussed for Ender’s Game. The rights were originally bought by Warner Bros. in 2002, but that option lapsed when Card conflicted with director Wolfgang Petersen. Since then, producer Gigi Pritzker (Odd Lot) stepped in and hired Hood.
Hood is currently preparing a visual presentation for the Cannes Film Festival, where the film will be shopped around for distribution.
(Top pic courtesy of Penny Arcade, story via Deadline)
