It’s been a slow but steady march for “Ender’s Game” to get on the big screen, but it now looks closer than ever to finally going in front of cameras.
The project was first announced last fall and finds Gavid Hood (“Tsotsi,” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine“) tackling the classic novel penned by Orson Scott Card. The story is set in the future, when Earth is at war with an insectoid race named the Formics, and follows Ender, one of a group of children being trained to be military commanders. Wolfgang Petersen was previously developing a D.B. Weiss/David Benioff-penned adaptation of the novel, but that fell by the wayside. But Hood is knee deep in development of the project, which set up at Odd Lot Entertainment, and he is rewriting a script by Card himself. Not only that, he’s got the powerhouse producing duo of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman behind him and now, the project finally has a studio home.
Deadline reveals that Summit has acquired the rights to the movie and are planning to turn into a youth-oriented franchise and no surprise given the mammoth success of the “Twilight” serires. Next month, foreign buyers will get a chance to take look at the project as Hood will give a visual presentation of what he has in store at the Cannes Film Festival. Things are moving along and plans are get this one rolling by early 2012.
So yeah, it all sounds good but frankly, ‘Wolverine’ was a disaster and the new youth angle their gunning for has us worried. So for now, our expectations are reined in.
