If you’ve read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, you know one of the biggest challenges for writer-director Gavin Hood was bringing the Battle Room to life.
When Ender (Asa Butterfield) is recruited by the International Fleet, he’s sent into space to Battle School to learn how to defend the planet against the Formics, an alien race that nearly decimated humanity and is expected to return. While there are classes in Battle School, the central element of the curriculum is actually a game.
While on the film’s NASA Michoud Assembly Facility set in New Orleans, producer Linda McDonough explained, “They have two different ‘gates.’ They accumulate points by hitting each other with these lasers. The lasers don’t injure you; they freeze parts of your suit. But if either team is able to get a man through the other team’s gate, they completely win the battle.” Now just picture all of that in a zero-gravity environment.
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How do you make a movie set in the future about a six-year-old recruited by the military to wipe out an invading alien race? If the answer were simple, perhaps Ender’s Game would have been adapted to film far sooner. Orson Scott Card’s novel was first published back in 1985, after which the rights sat at Warner Bros. for 12 years, the film never making it past the development stage. Finally, the rights lapsed and Linda McDonough and her producing team snatched them up to make the movie their way — independently. As she proudly points out, “We think we may be the largest independently financed film ever put together.”
Before fielding rapid-fire Q&A questions at the Ender’s Game panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Asa Butterfield and Hailee Steinfeld sat down and had some fun telling us how they might fare if they ever really had to compete in the Ender’s Game Battle Room.
Bummed you didn’t get to check out Battle School on the Ender’s Game set first hand? We’ve got you covered. Disappointed you didn’t make it out to San Diego for Comic-Con this year? We’ve still got you covered because not only did Movies.com get a preview of theEnder’s Game Fan Experience, but we’ve also got a video walkthrough of the facility so you can check out some of the set pieces, props and costumes for yourself.
What better way to spend the most magical time of year than by seeing a particularly magical and inspiring movie? No, this isn’t a review – that you can find right here – but there’s really no way to talk about Hugo without being swept right back up by that incredible adventure.
Part of the beauty of filmmaking, is the ability to transport viewers to another reality. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, filmmaker Georges Méliès seized the opportunity to put stop tricks and painted film cells to use, combining his skills as a magician and filmmaker to, quite literally, bring dreams to life. Ultimately, we’re still doing the very same thing today, but with the wildly advanced technology and more thorough understanding of storytelling, director Martin Scorsese has created one of the most successful attempts at bringing an audience into the movie with Hugo.
Kick-Ass made a decent $96 million worldwide, but when it comes to the caliber of the film it deserves so much more. Lucky for all of you folks who missed it in the theaters, Kick-Ass is set to hit DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, July 3rd. In honor of the release, star Chloe Moretz took some time to chat about the film that transformed her from an up and coming actress into one of the industry’s most sought after young stars.