“Ender’s Game” Gets a Director

According to an article on Sci-Fi Wire, Wolfgang Peterson had been signed to direct the film, which will combine “Ender’s Game” and “Ender’s Shadow.”

Peterson has also helmed: Das Boot, The Neverending Story (one of my childhood favorites), Enemy Mine (One of my picks for best Sci-Fi), In the Line of Fire, Air Force One, and The Perfect Storm.

5 replies on ““Ender’s Game” Gets a Director”

  1. finally some forward movement!
    I’ve been watching the scope on this movie for awhile and I think this is a great piece of news. Not only is this guy a decent director, but they’ve decided to combine the two books.

    This was smart because (IMHO) Ender’s Game didn’t have enough content for a full length movie. And since the books happen at the same time, we’re set for a lot of cool scenes.

    • Re: finally some forward movement!

      I’ve been watching the scope on this movie for awhile and I think this is a great piece of news. Not only is this guy a decent director, but they’ve decided to combine the two books.

      This was smart because (IMHO) Ender’s Game didn’t have enough content for a full length movie. And since the books happen at the same time, we’re set for a lot of cool scenes.

      It also opens up the possibility of making Shadow of the Hegemon as a sequel. I think the other books are too esoteric to make a Hollywood sequel for Ender’s Game.

  2. I disagree.
    The other books aren’t really that esoteric at all, other than the fact that Card’s writing style in the other two was less accessible (and Children of the Mind was just bad.) The story in both are more complex, and lend themselves less easily to screenplays, but still have great potential in terms of being movies.

    Secondly, the decision to combine Ender’s Shadow, IMHO, is quite a setback. Movies of this nature will very rarely be much longer than 2 to 2 and a half hours, and by including the personality of Bean into the movie, the characters of Peter and Valentine will be severly underdeveloped, besides Peter being a one-dimensional ruthless being and Valentine as the equivalent of the Virgin Mary.

    Let us hope that Ender’s Game doesn’t try to cram too much in. In terms of critical review records, I think that Ender’s Game would be better off with less action and more ‘delving into the psyche’. Card should not gear this movie towards less mature audiences.

    • Re: I disagree.

      Secondly, the decision to combine Ender’s Shadow, IMHO, is
      quite a setback. Movies of this nature will very rarely be
      much longer than 2 to 2 and a half hours, and by including
      the personality of Bean into the movie, the characters of
      Peter and Valentine will be severly underdeveloped, besides
      Peter being a one-dimensional ruthless being and Valentine
      as the equivalent of the Virgin Mary.

      The first quarter of the screenplay is available on The Hat Rack, OSC’s site.
      If you read that portion and the comments that go along
      with it, you’ll see that they decided to leave that
      storyline out a while ago, before they decided to combine
      Ender’s Shadow, so that there’s enough screen time for the
      rest. These characters won’t be developed at all.

    • Re: I disagree.


      Secondly, the decision to combine Ender’s Shadow, IMHO, is quite a setback. Movies of this nature will very rarely be much longer than 2 to 2 and a half hours, and by including the personality of Bean into the movie, the characters of Peter and Valentine will be severly underdeveloped, besides Peter being a one-dimensional ruthless being and Valentine as the equivalent of the Virgin Mary.

      Peter was actually more developed in Ender’s Shadow. But I don’t agree with the development. Peter was a ruthless sociopath in Ender’s Game, and I would really have liked to see how that character made his way to being Hegemon. The Peter of Ender’s Shadow seems too willing to put up with humiliation. He would have made a reasonable candidate for Battle School, certainly no worse than the other enemies that Ender found there. The original Peter was excluded specifically because he could not control himself.

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