When humanity is under threat from an alien race, Ender Wiggin, at the age of six, leaves his family on Earth to journey to the Belt. There he enters Battle School, where his life is strictly disciplined by mind games and computer mock-battles fought in deadly earnest. Instinct, compassion and genius make Ender unequalled. But while he trains, the invasion approaches fast. And Ender will be pushed to the limits of endurance, for his is a unique destiny.

A bona fide science fiction classic, Orson Scott Card’s 1985 novel actually won both the Hugo and Nebula awards.

This project has been in development heck since about 2002. In 2005 it was announced that David Benioff, the Troy scribe, and Dan Weiss are set to pen Ender's Game in conjunction with Troy director Wolfgang Peterson. (Peterson made a splash with Das Boot way back in 1985 and has since directed the likes of Air Force One, Poseidon and In the Line of Fire. His previous forays in the SF/fantasy genre were Never-Ending Story in 1984 and Enemy Mine in 1985.)

At one stage Peterson’s next project was supposed to be The Grays, a piece of hokum by Whitley Striebler who wrote the dreadful Communion in which the author seriously claimed to have been anally probed by aliens that kidnapped him.

According to the latest reports (dated 7 January 2009) Peterson has however dropped out of this project largely because author Card was unhappy with the direction the film was taking. Author Card said that he was simply not interested in a "tough-hero action film". That doesn't mean that Card believes a film version can't happen. Apparently he hopes that a new Marvel comic book adaptation of his novel will convince Hollywood that a faithful adaptation of Ender's Game is possible . . .

We here at the Sci-Fi Movie Page often lament about how many great science fiction stories never get made while a lot of crud do get made. However we share Card's dread of Hollywood tackling this book: it can so easily become The Last Starfighter with small kids . . . shudder!

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