So they’re finally getting a move on that ENDER’S GAME adaptation. Ever since Gavin Hood came on board as director (X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE) things have picked up.
A couple of weeks ago, a casting call was sent out for the film. Apparently they are still following the script that was written by STAR TREK scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman which started as a draft by ENDER’S GAME author Orson Scott Card. Hood has retooled it as well.
io9 got their hands on the character details and then decided to layout a summary of what they read. They do contain spoiler points (yes, I put stuff in bold so you don’t yell at me) if you have not read the book. I will give you a few and if you want more head on here. Go ahead, drag your little brother to an audition. You will notice that there’s some new details in the character descriptions as well. Some of this may not even be used as io9 indicates, could be from an earlier draft and not the final shooting script.
Ender Wiggin: He’s depicted as smart and sensitive, but also incredibly ruthless. And he’s ten years old — older than in the book, but not as old as Hollywood was trying to make him at one point. There are a few scenes where he worries about being like his cut-throat brother Peter, and confides in his sister Valentine. Just like in the book, he dishes out a rough treatment to Bonzo Madrid, his former platoon leader, when Bonzo tries to bully him too much. And then he feels bad about it. The screenplay also includes some scenes where Ender has weird nightmares about the buggers — and he tries to understand where the buggers are coming from, and what their children are like. Ender is pissed at Graff because he keeps changing the rules in the war “exercises.”
Bean: We get to see Bean watching a heavily edited video of Mazer Rackham’s famous victory over the formics, in which Mazer fires his nuclear warhead into the formics’ exhaust system. And Bean is so thrilled he throws his hands in the air and shouts with joy — until Ender bursts his bubble, explaining that the video is edited so we don’t see Mazer die. (And later, Ender also hints that Mazer’s victory might have had a darker side, that’s also edited out.) In another scene, Graff shows Bean and Ender to the famous zero-gravity training room, where they float around with a bunch of other kids. Ender explains to Bean that there’s no “up or down” in zero-G, and then they discover their weapons actually freeze anyone they shoot at, by causing the spacesuits to swell up. They team up to go freeze some of the other kids.
Peter Wiggin: Ender’s brother is fully a psychopath in this version of the screenplay. He’s insanely jealous that Ender was chosen for the battle school, and completely enraged when it seems like Ender has washed out of the program. At one point, he locks their sister, Valentine, out of the room and forces Ender to put on a Formic mask so they can play Formics and Astronauts, which basically consists of Peter beating the crap out of Ender.