We love the Ender’s Game production blog, but its sometimes-updated ways are making us anxious for more information. Apparently, MTV felt the same and recently talked with producer Alex Kurtzman about the project.
Written by Orson Scott Card, the story is set in a future utopian version of Earth. It follows a young boy who is a strategist of the genius level who becomes drafted by the International Fleet to battle and destroy to Formics. Formics are a dangerous alien race that threaten mankind. And if Ender fails, then Earth will be gone forever.
“I’m really proud of the work everybody’s done on ‘Ender’s.’ Particularly because it’s a very complicated sprawling book that a lot of people have tried for a very long time to figure out how to make,” Kurtzman said.
He also talked with them about the difficulties of taking the original book, written by Orson Scott Card, and successfully transferring it to the big screen in a way that is understandable for all audiences.
“[Director] Gavin Hood, the minute that we read his script we realized that in a miraculous way he’d managed to distill down the essence of the book and the big moves to a very understandable clear format. He had made changes that were I think totally protective of the novel, he hasn’t changed any of the plot, it’s just about not being able to put all of it in one movie. He really distills it down to its essence in a beautiful way and that was an amazing thing to see. It’s an amazing thing to see the movie come to life because it’s such a special and different movie.”
It is not just the director, Gavin Hood, getting praised by Kurtzman. He also has nothing but great things to say about the cast of the adaptation which includes Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, and Abigail Breslin.
“Asa [Butterfield] is unbelievable in it. Hailee [Steinfeld] and Abigail [Breslin] are incredible. Harrison [Ford] and Viola [Davis] are just, they’re weirdly exactly what you imagined when you read the book, or at least I did,” he admitted. “It’s really going to be a special movie. We’re about halfway through it, maybe close to halfway but it’s been a wonderful shoot so far.”
“We’re just happy to support the vision of the book,” he added. “It’s such a treasured novel and it’s very rare that you get an opportunity to work on something like that so we were very psyched.”
Kurtzman definitely seems thrilled about the way the film is turning out. It will definitely be interesting to see how the film as a whole turns out as well as how scenes set in the Battle Room come together.