Summit Entertainment has acquired the U.S. rights to the classic sci-fi novel “Ender’s Game,” by Orson Scott Card. HitFix confirms that helmer Gavin Hood (“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) is in “final negotiations” to direct the film, based on his own adaptation.
Since “Game” is just the first book in the well-loved and long-running series, Summit can expect to have a potential new youth-oriented franchise on its hands, now that the studio’s lucrative “Twilight” series is nearing its end.
“Ender’s Game” takes place in the future, when Earth is at war with a powerful alien race. Gifted children, like Ender, are drafted into the military as pre-teens, where they partake in grueling, high-tech battle simulations in order to train them as quick-witted and nervy soldiers and pilots. Ender soon stands out from the rest of the recruits, and the military looks to him to strategize a victory.
K/O Paper Products’s Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are co-producing with Odd Lot’s Gigi Pritzker and Linda McDonough, Lynn Hendee and Card.
According to Deadline.com, Warner Bros. picked up the rights to the book in 2002 and made several attempts to produce an adaptation with director Wolfgang Petersen (“Air Force One,” “Troy”) attached. After the option ran out, Odd Lot entered the picture.
Hood is currently working with effect house Digital Domain in preparing a visual presentation to show at the Cannes festival in mid-May.
Hood’s 2005 film “Tsotsi” won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.