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Harrison Ford Might Join Ender’s Game

by Susana Polo | 2:04 pm, November 30th, 2011


Harrison Ford doesn’t do a whole lot of work these days, tending to pick his projects carefully, staying away from the genre that made him a household name. (Sometimes this works out, sometimes it doesn’t.)

But it looks like at least one more sci-fi franchise of the 80′s is interested in getting him to play a chiseled authority figure, namely: the production of Ender’s Game.

According the Variety, he’s on a list of actors being approached to play the role of Colonel Graff, the head of Battle School and the face of Earth’s militaristic and psychologically remorseless campaign of crafting child soldiers and strategists. In the book, Graff’s actions eventually reveal (spoiler paragraph follows)

that all of Battle School was pretty much stopped being about training children (and instead started being about enveloping Ender in a psychological kiln to strip away any mental weakness or apetite for failure while at the same time heightening the boy’s empathy for everyone around him) as soon as Ender arrived.

(end spoilers)

The part was apparently first offered to Viggo Mortensen, but now that negotiations with him have fallen through, the production is looking for other professional men of gravitas who might want to make a movie with them, and Ford is among them. Makes me wonder: if they’re looking for that level of talent to play Graff, who on earth are they going to get to play Mazer Rackham? (Not Woody Harrelson, he’s busy playing almost the same trope in The Hunger Games, thanks.) The things I hear out of the Ender’s Game production continue to reassure me that this will be an adaptation that has a chance to spread the real spirit of the books (independent of their author’s real life politics).

(via Digital Spy.)

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  • http://h0rcrux.tumblr.com @my!!

    Until that third paragraph where you say he’s being approached for Graff, I was legitimately holding in squeals of joy because (for whatever reason) I totally thought he was being picked to play Mazer.

  • http://twitter.com/hsmaclean Scott Maclean

    I also thought that Harrison would be up for the role.  If he’s not, then my vote is for Daniel Craig as Mazer Rackham.

  • http://twitter.com/JLuVeeGee JLu Vee Gee

    I also originally thought he was being pulled for Mazer.

  • http://twitter.com/wulfmojo Wulfy

    Not happy about this. Graff is quite a nuanced character, I don’t think Harrison “I want my family back” Ford is right for him.

  • Michael Dahlstrom

    Please let the “personal politics of the author” thing go.  

  • Anonymous

    I dunno, his “personal politics” are pretty sketchy. Man worked for NOM, practically a hate group.

  • Frodo Baggins

    Buggers. Why did it have to be buggers?

  • http://amidstdancers.blogspot.com/ Shard Aerliss

    What do you mean ‘practically’?

  • Anonymous

    Mazer is described as “half-Maori” in the book.

  • Phil Ferocious

    Well there’s no shortage of Maori actors – Cliff Curtis & Tem Morrison spring to mind as the right sort of age & bristling animus

  • Carmen Sandiego

    No, I won’t let it go.  Please let go of requesting people silence themselves on this matter. :D

  • http://www.facebook.com/amandry Antonia Mandry

    Totally Cliff Curtis!!!

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