Producer Bob Orci on Making Tough Choices

Click recently caught up with Ender's Game producer Bob Orci and his producing partner-in-crime Alex Kurtzman to talk about -- you guessed it -- Star Trek Into Darkness.

A duo that's been collaborating for over 20 years, most recently under the film production company K/O Paper Products, they also chatted a bit about their unique relationship and the difficulties and perks that come along with such a long-term partnership.

Bob Orci also addressed the challenges that come with adapting a book with an almost cult following:

CLICK: You've also got a lot of other sci-fi movies on the way - like Ender's Game. It's another tough world to adapt, with many fans.

RO: Yea the thing about dealing with franchises is there are fans and they have expectations and you want to please them. And yet you also have to be true to adapting something into live action. And you have to make some tough choices. So you always hope that the fans understand the choices you make and that you are true to translating the thing that you loved about any given property, be it Star Trek, Transformers or Ender's Game. The book is very internal and you want to make sure you are translating that in a way that is true to the book but is also true to the scope of cinema. (Source)

If you haven't already, make sure you check out the Q&A session on the official Ender's Game production blog where Orci answered loads of questions regarding his favorite scenes, visual influences, and the translation of Ender's inner monologue to the big screen! (Part 1 | Part 2)

156 days to go.

EnderCast Episode #14: Ender's Shadow

Hey guys! We released another episode of EnderCast yesterday titled "Ender's Shadow." In this episode we covered:

- Gavin Hood's birthday
- the Ender's Game trailer in theaters
- Asa’s Reddit AMA, new projects, and time for sequels
- Autograph cards from Cryptozoic
- Moises Arias' Bonzo
- Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci's reaction to "The Card Question"

Don't forget: you can listen to EnderCast whenever you like by subscribing to us on iTunes!

Thanks again for tuning in!

Bob Orci: "It’s about tolerance, it’s about responsibility, it’s about growing up."

Producing duo Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman recently sat down with The Wall Street Journal's entertainment blog Speakeasy to discuss their newly-released Star Trek Into Darkness as well as other upcoming projects -- Ender's Game included.

This is part two of a two-part interview. You can check out the first part of their interview (which includes more Star Trek talk) here.

What were some of the challenges you and director Gavin Hood faced in adapting Orson Scott Card’s "Ender's Game" into a film?

Orci: "Ender's Game" was a book that we both loved from teenagehood. It was published in 1985 and I think we read it in high school, maybe even earlier. The challenge with the book is it’s very internal in that a lot of the narrative that occurs is within the character’s head and the trick is, how do you dramatize that? The answer is both through having some of those internal struggles be dramatically shown as scenes, and second, we have an advantage that the book does not have, and that is actors. We have great actors who can not only say things, but play things and play reactions on their faces and actually convey a lot of the emotion of the book. Thankfully now we have the technology to make it the grand adventure that it deserves to be. We have the technology to render a Zero-G environment in a totally believable and incredible way.

They also briefly tackled the sensitive issue of Orson Scott Card's controversial views on gay marriage and how these views may or may not affect the reception of the film:

Orci: I was never aware of in the book – and we’ve read it three or four times during our lifetime before we got into this movie – I never saw any sign in “Ender’s Game” of anything that offended Alex or me. The book is beautiful. It’s about tolerance, it’s about responsibility, it’s about growing up. We just tend to judge a book on its own merits. Nothing that anyone could say is going to remove our original reaction of how we perceive this beautiful book. For us, it’s just about the book.

Kurtzman: Look, obviously it’s a First Amendment issue and Mr. Card is free to express whatever point-of-view he chooses to express, and we are free to disagree with him. At this point, that’s all I really want to say about it.

Great statements from both of these men. At this point, it seems that's pretty much all anyone cares to say about it.

168 days until Ender's Game hits US theaters!