October 22, 2013 · 8:37 pm
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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Filed under Features
Tagged as Abigail Breslin, Asa Butterfield, Ben Procter, Don Miloyevich, Ender's Game, Gavin Hood, Hailee Steinfeld, Linda McDonough, Orson Scott Card, Sean Haworth, Set Visit
October 2, 2013 · 2:49 pm
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.”
Directed by Gavin Hood, Ender’s Game features a young boy named Ender (Asa Butterfield) who’s plucked from his family on Earth and shipped off to Battle School to train with the International Fleet (IF) in the hopes that he’ll be able to save the human race from the alien Formics by using their own colony, Eros, as a vantage point.
If you were keeping track, that makes three key locations — Earth, Battle School, and Eros. Even though Ender’s Game isn’t some $200 million mega budget project, the filmmakers were still hell-bent on creating fully realized versions of each realm, down to the tiniest detail.
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Tagged as Abigail Breslin, Asa Butterfield, Ben Procter, Don Miloyevich, Ender's Game, Gavin Hood, Hailee Steinfeld, Linda McDonough, Orson Scott Card, Sean Haworth, Set Visit
July 22, 2013 · 2:31 pm
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.
At this year’s Comic-Con
Butterfield and Steinfeld sat down to talk about being suspended in a zero gravity environment, and something called a “hamster wheel” but for people. Said Steinfeld:
“We were training in terms of strengthening our core and all this intense stuff… and we got there and none of it came in handy because you’re literally out there on wires, like, feet up in the air.”
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February 26, 2011 · 1:27 am
Oscars 2011: Forget Who Should Win, This Is Who I Want To Win
With just a day left to go until the big show, I’d like to bet you’ve had enough Oscar predictions – especially considering quite a handful of the biggest honors are considered locks. Well, I offer you something a little different; not who I think will win, but who I think should win.
Best Picture: The King’s Speech
Every Best Picture nominee achieves some degree of filmmaking prowess, otherwise, they wouldn’t be nominated in the first place. Rather than pick apart the elements and compare the contenders by the writing, directing acting, etc., this category comes down to something far simpler, yet something tougher to achieve – poignancy. Which of these films moved me most? Toy Story 3 left me in tears, 127 Hours with a knot in my stomach and Inception with my head spinning, but it was The King’s Speech that was overwhelmingly rousing. This is such a special film for so many reasons and those reasons will likely be rewarded in the other categories, but in terms of the Best Picture Oscar alone, my fingers are crossed for The King Speech based on its incredible ability to connect my heartstrings to those of the characters in the film and tug on them all the way through.
I’ll Be Pissed If This Wins: Inception
Inception may be endlessly interesting and responsible for countless summertime debates, but an Oscar for Best Picture? Come on. On top of that, even after all the discussions, who can say they really understand the movie through and through? It was fun while it lasted, but Inception’s infinite twists and turns aren’t enough for the film to stand the test of time as well as its contenders.
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Tagged as 127 Hours, Aaron Sorkin, Amy Adams, Annette Bening, Black Swan, Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Coen Brothers, Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Hailee Steinfeld, Helena Bonham Carter, How to Train Your Dragon, Inception, Jacki Weaver, James Franco, Javier Bardem, Jeff Bridges, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Jesse Eisenberg, Lisa Cholodenko, Melissa Leo, Michelle Williams, Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, Oscars 2011, Stuart Blumberg, The Academy Awards, The Fighter, The Illusionist, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, The Social Network, The Town, Tom Hooper, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone
January 15, 2011 · 10:59 pm
Hailee Steinfeld’s Next Film — Could It Be ‘The Hunger Games?’
Hailee Steinfeld is no longer just the girl from the K-Mart Blingitude commercial or the young actress from a handful of short films for that matter; she’s a critically acclaimed actress and quite possibly even an Oscar contender for Best Supporting Actress (she already won Best Young Actress at the Critic’s Choice Awards). Of course it’s a special thing to be cast in a Coen brothers movie, but in Steinfeld’s case, being cast as Mattie Ross in ‘True Grit’ is life changing.
It should come as no surprise that with this particularly big break will come an assortment of film offers – and rumors of offers, too. Lately, we’ve been hearing quite a lot about Steinfeld potentially portraying Katniss Everdeen in the film adaptation of Suzanne Collins‘ wildly popular book, ‘The Hunger Games.’ From the start, I’ve championed Chloe Moretz for the part not only because she’s a spectacular actress, but also because there was really nobody else who could handle the part. Well, after catching ‘True Grit,’ my ideal casting for the lead role in this potential blockbuster franchise changed and Ms. Moretz has slipped to option #2.
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Filed under Features
Tagged as Chloe Moretz, Hailee Steinfeld, Katniss Everdeen, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, True Grit
