Category: Director: Gavin Hood

This week’s entry in the Ender’s Game production blog features a photo of director Gavin Hood crossing off a scene he’s completed filming in the Battle Room.

Here you see him crossing off a completed shot of his detailed story boards in the zero g battle room where our young actors, in their zero g training suits, are showing off the high flying skills they’ve learned from our veteran stunt coordinator Garrett Warren.

Still, one of the best parts of the entry was the following:

We never thought we would find a bigger fan of the novel than all of us until Gavin walked in the room.  Going back to his roots, Gavin decided to take on the challenge of adapting the novel himself, which gives him a huge advantage when it comes to directing it because he knows his script better than any of us.

Having a director that’s a fan of the book is always a great thing to hear. Hopefully the adaptation he’s created is something that will satisfy his fellow fans because Ender’s Game is definitely something difficult to translate to screen since, similar to Lionsgate’s recent smash hit The Hunger Games, the book is told almost entirely from Ender’s perspective.

This is made even more difficult by the fact that Ender is six years old in the book. Since Ender is now 10 in the movie, this make it a little easier, but it still presents the dilemma of whether it should largely be from Ender’s perspective or if the film should broaden it’s view to encompass the overall story taking place around Ender.

Conversations take place between Graff and Anderson continually, so this supports a broad world view, but the biggest question comes down to whether Hood wants to keep the audience in the dark in regards to the ending, since it could make for a great twist to the movie for those who have not read the books.

They also allude to what was probably one of the biggest reasons why Ender had to be aged up, so hopefully that settles down some of the fans angered over Ender’s “new” age.

[G]iven the time limitations inherent in working with young actors, this movie would be impossible to complete without Gavin’s preparation and passion.

Depending on the child labor laws of the state, young children are only allowed a set amount of hours on set per day. Not only that, when your main star is “supposed” to be six years old, this obviously poses a problem since being on set for hours at that age can be exhausting. I want an Ender’s Game movie as much as everyone else, but not at the expense of a little kid sweating it out on a movie set for months.

Source: Ender’s Game Blog