Sir Ben Kingsley is in talks to join Odd Lot’s adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s classic SF novel “Ender’s Game.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Oscar winner (“Gandhi”) will reunite with his “Hugo” co-star Asa Butterfield in the film, which will also star “True Grit” ingenue Hailee Steinfeld. Additionally, there was talk last week that Harrison Ford was circling the film.
In “Ender’s Game,” a group of children (including Ender, played by Butterfield) are sent to an elite war academy where they partake in high-tech war games in order to prepare them for combat with a relentless alien race that has been waging war on humanity for decades. Steinfeld will play another academy recruit who befriends Ender.
Kingsley will take on the role of an aged war hero, who was long-thought dead.
The film is being written and directed by Gavin Hood (“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”). Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (“Transformers,” “Star Trek”) are producing with Odd Lot’s Gigi Pritzker and Linda McDonough. They’re hoping to start shooting in February.
Kingsley can currently be seen in Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,” and will soon appear in “A Common Man” and in Sacha Baron Cohen’s “The Dictator.”
What do you think of the film’s cast so far? Is it faithful to Card’s novels?