Harrison Ford, Abigail Breslin and Hailee Steinfeld Confirmed for Ender’s Game
Here’s a news story left over from before the New Year that seems like it still might be worth posting about. Gavin Hood’s adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s 1985 sci-fi novel Ender’s Game is slowly continuing to fill out its cast, and despite some of the early concerns about finding enough reliable young actors, it seems to be shaping up quite well. In particular, the project has just added two Oscar nominees in the form of Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) and Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit). Of course, there are also a couple of “cagey veterans” in the mix, including Harrison Ford, who is now confirmed for the role of Colonel Hyram Graff, the officer in charge of training young soldiers for the fight against the insectoid alien race known as the Formics. Check out the list of the rest of recently announced cast members after the jump.
We already heard back in November that Hugo star Asa Butterfield would be taking on the lead role of Ender Wiggin, and his Hugo co-star Ben Kingsley has also signed on to play Mazer Rackham, a war hero who assists in the training of new recruits. According to Variety, the full cast for Ender’s Game currently looks like this:
- Asa Butterfield – Ender Wiggin
- Abigail Breslin – Valentine Wiggin (Ender’s sister)
- Jimmy “Jax” Pinchak – Peter Wiggin (Ender’s brother)
- Harrison Ford – Colonel Hyrum Graff
- Ben Kingsley – Mazer Rackham
- Hailee Steinfeld – Petra Arkanian
- Brendan Meyer – Stilson
- Aramis Knight – Bean
- Moises Arias – Bonzo
- Suraj Parthasarathy – Alai
- Conor Carroll – Bernard
- Khylin Rhambo – Dink
Ender’s Game is expected to start production in early 2012 in New Orleans. What do you think, is the casting headed in the right direction? Do you have high hopes for this big screen adaptation of a science-fiction classic?
Comments (9)
I guess this is the only way to go with this, but the kids are supposed to be much younger than the actors they have chosen, to the point that the book is pretty much unfilmable… I’m talking about six-year-olds who can speak as eloquently as adults.
It’s pretty much a question of either not having it at at all or having a decent, filmable approximation.
Posted by Colin on January 4th, 2012Definitely skewing too old — the biggest problem with this is that Ender is supposed to have been in Battle School for something like six or seven years by the end of the story, but given that Stilson (a character from the very beginning of the book) is cast as a teenager, they must have condensed all the Battle School training into something more like six months. Also looks like they may have gotten a number of the supporting characters’ races/cultures wrong (Dink Meeker is Dutch; Alai is North African)… and they’re listing some really minor characters here while much more important ones have been left out (Bernard, but no Hot Soup or Crazy Tom?).
I’m not at all confident that they’re going to do justice to this excellent book. They should have stuck with the script Orson Scott Card wrote himself instead of hiring a hack who couldn’t even make a good X-Men movie. The book is iconic and deserves a decent adaptation; hopefully this guy can pull it off.
Posted by mark on January 4th, 2012Peter has a Twitter.
Posted by Peter Peter Pumkin on January 5th, 2012https://twitter.com/#!/JimmyJaxPinchak
While the book has a major following I don’t see the movie standing up to expectations. Maybe anamated would be better or anamated mini-series. Just a thought I’ll see it any way it comes out
Posted by iceman on January 6th, 2012I don’t like this cast at all. Besides the fact that the actor who plays Ender is freakin five years older than they originally intended for the movie, he looks like a wuss and not the leader type AT ALL. Abigail Breslin isn’t a bad actress but she’s way overrated and to be honest doesn’t look very smart. Peter is a weak actor with no charisma and doesn’t look that smart either. Neither of them is believable as genius and none of the Wiggin kids look even related to each other. Stilson and Bonzo are obnoxious Disney brats and everyone is too old for their roles. Mazer is ok, but Harrison Ford is just TOO famous.
Bad cast combined with bad director. Ender’s Game film does not look promising at all. I’ll probably skip it and continue dreaming what it could have been like :/
Posted by ranty on January 9th, 2012I dont think Suraj Parthasarathy will fit the role of Alai as in the shadow books he is described as being of African descent and doesn’t look like he fits in in the Muslim world in Damascus when he becomes the new Chali of the united Muslim nations. As in one bit he is betrayed and knows he cant just run thru streets as he would both stand out for not looking like the rest and there fore being recognized as the Chali.
But i think Ben Kingsley will will have the same problem Rackman as he is meant to be 1/2 Maori.
as for the rest it will just be how people thought they would look. they should all fit.
Posted by Daniel Dawes on January 13th, 2012I became so excited to finally see a film adaptation of one of my all time favorite books. And then I saw the cast. All the previous commenters have very valid points. These actors are too old!!! And while I don’t think the looks of some of the actors are bad, I really can’t see Abigail Breslin in Valentine’s role. Maybe she’ll drop out before then.
Posted by Jess Garrett on January 13th, 2012The only one I agree with is Ben Kingsley (PS Daniel Dawes have you seen Kingsley in the Ghandi movie? He played Ghandi.. I think he can play someone 1/2 Maori…)
I dunno about the kids, none of them look anything like what I pictured them looking like… and ugh where’s Nikolai? Like seriously if you got Bean you gotta at least have Nikolai do a cameo…
Isn’t Bean blond? Or am I remembering wrong?
I think the only way this could ever live up to book fans expectations is if Card wrote a screen adaptation for an animated mini-series. The roles are just too young to fill.
Posted by HerlyGirl on February 2nd, 2012Are we really yelling about age and ethnicity? Who cares?! If your are intelligent enough to read this book and LOVE this story, who cares?! Don’t you think it is powerful enough, if, you have the RIGHT cast, they will do every word and passion justice? The STORY is what is fantastic, WHOEVER develops it. I am super excited and glad for the Allstar cast, hopefully that will bring viewers to share in amazing story we all love.
Posted by Sunny daze on February 18th, 2012Leave a Reply