Ender's Game - Movie Review

Starring Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, Ben Kingsley and Abigail Breslin.
Directed by Gavin Hood.

★★★

It's been forever since I read the book so while I remember the basics and the ending, there was still a good amount of discovery for me to do.
I liked the central performance of Asa Butterfield (Hugo) as Ender, a brilliant but alienated child, in training to become the next great military tactitian on a future Earth that's being threatened by an alien race.  There are times it can feel confining (most of it takes place on a space station), but the plot is paced nicely between progress and discovery.

Ford, Davis and Kingsley are the adults who provide the gravitas, and this is the best Ford's been in years, as though he actually cared about this movie being good.

Ender's Game is #1

For the weekend of November 1-3, 2013.

1.  Ender's Game - $28 million - 1 wk (LG)
 . . . 3407 screens / $8218 per screen
2.  Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa - $20.5 ($62.06) - 2 wks (Par) -36%
 . . . 3345 / $6129
3.  Last Vegas - $16.52 - 1 wk (CBS)
 . . . 3065 / $5390
4.  Free Birds - $16.2 - 1 wk (Rel)
 . . . 3736 / $4336
5.  Gravity - $13.13 ($219.2) - 5 wks (WB) -34.8%
 . . . 3024 / $4342
6.  Captain Phillips - $8.5 ($82.55) - 4 wks (Sony) -27%
 . . . 3021 / $2814
7.  12 Years a Slave - $4.6 ($8.76) - 3 wks (FS) +115.5%
 . . . 410 / $11,220
8.  Cloudy with Meatballs 2 - $4.2 ($106.2) - 6 wks (Sony) -33.1%
 . . . 2430 / $1728
9.  Carrie - $3.4 ($31.97) - 3 wks (SG) -43.2%
 . . . 2252 / $1510
10. The Counselor - $3.25 ($13.37) - 2 wks (Fox) -58.6%
 . . . 3044 / $1068
11. Escape Plan - $2.28 ($21.6) - 3 wks (LG) -50%
 . . . 1966 / $1160
12. About Time - $1.1 - 1 wk (U)
 . . . 175 / $6286

Despite all the controversy around boycotting the movie, Ender's Game had a solid debut.  Last Vegas also has to be see as a success with its $28 million budget.  Now had it opened 20 years ago with that cast - Douglas, DeNiro, Freeman, Kline - it probably would have been one of the biggest movies of the year.

Free Birds had a weak opening but might benefit from being Thanksgiving month. Reviews haven't been kind.

Random Movie Stuff - 2/18/12

- Nonso Anozie (The Grey) has joined the cast of Ender's Game, which is now slated for a March 15, 2013 release date.  It stars Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Viola Davis, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld and Abigial Breslin.


- Gael Garcia Bernal (Amores Perros, Letters from Juliet) will star in Zorro Reborn, a sci-fi twist on the Mexican legend that puts him in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.


- Anna Friel (Limitless) and Imogen Poots (Fright Night) have joined the cast of Michael Winterbottom's King of Soho, starring Steve Coogan as Paul Raymond, who became one of England's wealthiest men by building an empire of nude theaters, gentlemen's clubs and porn magazines.


- Jennifer Aniston, Dennis Quaid and Ty Burrell have joined John Hawkes and Yasiin Bey in Switch, the prequel to Jackie Brown.


- Malin Akerman (Watchmen) has joined the cast of ABC's The Smart One.  It stars Portia de Rossi (Better Off Ted) as a brilliant, successful businesswoman who has to go to work for her ditzy younger sister, now the mayor.  Jean Smart (24) will play their mother.


- While The Office is still NBC's highest-rated show on Thursdays, it no longer can buoy the night. It fell to a series-low 4.3 million viewers (2.2 rating).  30 Rock's doing even worse than Community did at the 8/7 hour with 3.6 million viewers and a 1.4 rating.

Random Movie Stuff - 12/18/11

- Ben Kingsley may reunite with his Hugo co-star Asa Butterfield in Ender's Game.

- Reese Witherspoon will star in Devil's Knot, about the West Memphis Three. It's the true story of three young men who were convicted of killing three boys in 1993, but after several years and a couple documentaries made demonstrating their innocence, they were finally freed. Witherspoon would play the mother of one of the victims, who was sure they were guilty but over the years came to believe them and fought for their release.

- Rachel McAdams is in talks to reunite with her Sherlock Holmes 2 co-star Noomi Rapace in Passion for director Brian DePalma.

- James Frain (Water for Elephants) has joined the cast of The Lone Ranger, starring Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Tom Wilkinson.

- David Fincher (Se7en, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is still working on developing an animated film based on the Dark Horse comic-book character The Goon. He's also still looking at doing an origin story of Captain Nemo, a prequel/reboot of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Exclusive! San Andreas 3-D movie, Ender's Game, etc.

- New Line is prepping a big-budget earthquake movie for 2012. San Andreas 3-D will be produced by Beau Flynn. Here's the exclusive from the L.A. Times, and here's Deadline Hollywood pretending they have the scoop. (h/t @TheInSneider)

UPDATE: After I commented twice there and they deleted my comments, Deadline has removed the word "Exclusive."

In Other News:

- Kyle Chandler (Super 8) has joined the cast of Broken City, starring Mark Wahlberg as a detective hired by the mayor (Russell Crowe) to investigate his wife's lover. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Barry Pepper, Jeffrey Wright and Justin Chambers co-star. (VO)

- David Ayer (Training Day) is going write another version of Scarface, and it's said he's studying the 1932 and 1982 versions. (DHD)

- Asa Butterfield (Hugo) will star in Ender's Game for director Gavin Hood (Wolverine). Harrison Ford and Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) are also being sought for roles.

Random Movie Stuff

- David Koepp (Spider-Man, Jurassic Park) will be rewriting the next Jack Ryan movie, to star Chris Pine (Unstoppable, Star Trek) and to be directed by Jack Bender (Lost).

- Gavin Hood (X-men Origins: Wolverine) in talks to direct Ender's Game for Summit Entertainment. The sci-fi classic from Orson Scott Card has been in development forever, but maybe this time it'll happen. (I remember when The Phantom Menace opened, Card speculated Jake Lloyd could play Ender.)

- Quentin Tarantino has completed his next script, a spaghetti Western called Django Unleashed, and Christoph Waltz will co-star.

- Jeff Bridges is replacing Zack Galifianakis in R.I.P.D. It's a ghost comedy starring Ryan Reynolds.

- Chris Hemsworth might become a big star, so he might be happy that another one of this limbo titles has found a distributor. Lionsgate is picking up Cabin in the Woods, a horror film co-starring Richard Jenkins. That leaves the Red Dawn remake the last Hemsworth/MGM title collecting dust on the shelf.

- There are 95 sequels in the works.