After it occurred to me last night that today is the
1 year anniversary of my visit to the
Ender's Game set in New Orleans, I admittedly became a little bummed. Where in the world has the time gone?
(You can read both of my set visit reports here:
Part 1,
Part 2)
To celebrate the day, I thought we could go back and review what's happened in the past 6 months since I posted
my first Ender's Game timeline. If you're just now catching up on movie happenings, make sure to read that one first!
Let's start where I left off last time, shall we?
November 12, 2012: Aramis Knight and Andrea Powell
attended the premiere of
Breaking Dawn Pt. 2 in Los Angeles. We were hoping they could meet up for a photo, but they couldn't find each other!
November 17, 2012: An edited version of the full synopsis of the
Ender's Game film was
released by Summit Entertainment:
In the near future, a hostile alien race (called the Formics) have attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of International Fleet Commander, Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley), all would have been lost. In preparation for the next attack, the highly esteemed Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) and the International Military are training only the best young children to find the future Mazer. Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy, but strategically brilliant boy is pulled out of his school to join the elite.
Arriving at Battle School, Ender quickly and easily masters increasingly difficult war games, distinguishing himself and winning respect amongst his peers. Ender is soon ordained by Graff as the military’s next great hope, resulting in his promotion to Command School. Once there, he’s trained by Mazer Rackham, himself, to lead his fellow soldiers into an epic battle that will determine the future of Earth and save the human race.
November 19, 2012: Ender News released
the second part of our SDCC 2012 interview with Orson Scott Card where he speaks a lot about the upcoming film. Before you start reading, you might want to
check out Part 1 in which he talks about his novel
Earth Unaware!
November 23, 2012: Jimmy Jax Pinchak and
Ender's Game stunt coordinator Garrett Warren faced off in their annual Thanksgiving football game.
Guess who won. Thanks for the pics, guys. :)
November 30, 2012: We reported on a book signing and
extensive Q&A session in which Orson Scott Card participated, where he gushed over the film's Battle Room scenes and clarified his semi-infamous "very few of the scenes in this movie [come from the book]" quote.
December 05, 2012:
Entertainment Weekly unveiled the first official
Ender's Game still which we later
broke down for fans.
December 13, 2012: Crystal from
EnderWiggin.net and I
officially launched our
Ender's Game podcast:
EnderCast! 14 episodes in, we are still running strong.
December 15, 2012: The
cast attended Hailee Steinfeld's 16th birthday party in LA.
January 17, 2013:
EnderSpeaker discovered that Amazon.com is
accepting pre-orders for an official
Ender's Game 2014 calendar.
February 06, 2013: Brandon Soo Hoo sat down with teen entertainment magazine
J-14 to
speak about his role (Fly Molo) in
Ender's Game and what it was like to work with some of his teenage co-stars.
"My character, Fly Molo, is a veteran soldier in Battle School. At first, he is introduced as Bonzo's lackey, but he eventually comes to recognize Ender as the superior commander. I can definitely relate to Fly's second-in-command role. A leader will always feel the majority of the pressure in a high-stakes situation, whereas the lieutenant is usually allowed to function below the radar. However, I'd say that unlike Fly, I would have a bit of trouble putting up with Bonzo. I have mild authority issues."
February 11, 2013: Suraj Partha
covers Phillip Phillips' "Gone Gone Gone" and posted the video on
his personal YouTube channel. A must watch! Since everyone is so musically talented, I'm still waiting around for an
Ender's Game cast band to pop up.
February 12, 2013: We
announced that Cryptozoic Entertainment had obtained the rights to produce not only an
Ender's Game board game, but a trading card series as well!
February 19, 2013: Four of the
Ender's Game army insignias
were exclusively revealed by the fan sites who visited the set last year - including Ender News! Check out
Salamander,
Rat and
Asp -- as well as Dragon Army to the left.
February 20, 2013: Just a day later, those same fan sites
unveiled an exciting still of Ender and Petra in the Battle School mess hall. We also included a set visit preview -- with promises of much more to come! No worries: we haven't forgotten.
February 24, 2013: Aramis Knight and Khylin Rhambo
smartened themselves up for a night on the town at Hollywood's Oscars after-party.
February 28, 2013: Hailee Steinfeld
signed copies of
Ender's Game while out in support of
Our Military Kids in Phoenix, AZ.March 01, 2013: Ender News turned 1!
March 19, 2013: A sneak peak of the Ender's Game trailer was shown to lucky professionals at the GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas - to raving reviews!
March 22, 2013: Rames from Ender News posted a great overview of what he believes when can expect regarding Ender's Game movie marketing.
March 24, 2013: Director Gavin Hood posted a sneak peak of the teaser poster over on the official production blog."Without exception, every person who works on this wonderful film brings more than just skill to the table. They bring passion."
March 25, 2013: Yahoo! Movies unveiled the first official Ender's Game teaser poster alongside an exclusive phone interview with Gavin Hood.
March 25, 2013: Producer Bob Orci casually mentioned on twitter that the Ender's Game trailer would make its cinematic debut in May in front of Star Trek Into Darkness. Way to make it no big deal, right?
March 27, 2013: Harrison Ford spoke with Entertainment Tonight and admitted that he believes Ender's Game "could be great."
April 1, 2013: Many of Asa Butterfield's cast and crew members rose to the occasion and sent in photos wishing him a very happy birthday! Thanks again to everyone who participated!
April 18, 2013: Ender's Game cast members Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, and Harrison Ford hit CinemaCon, where they were honored with awards -- plus, the trailer was shown during Summit's 2-hour 2013 project presentation.
April 20, 2013: Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston spoke at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books where
Card admitted that he believes
Speaker for the Dead to be unfilmable:
"'Speaker for the Dead' is unfilmable," Card said in response to a question from the audience. "It consists of talking heads, interrupted by moments of excruciating and unwatchable violence. Now, I admit, there's plenty of unwatchable violence in film, but never attached to my name.
"'Speaker for the Dead, I don't want it to be filmed. I can't imagine it being filmed'."
April 27, 2013: While making promotional rounds for
Iron Man 3, Sir Ben Kingsley (Mazer Rackham)
spoke to Coventry Telegraph about his other upcoming projects,
Ender's Game included:
Mazar Rackham [is] a combination of historically ancient warrior in that he is descended from Maori and has Maori tattooed on his face. And at the same time he is teaching children how to operate drones. So he is very advanced and also rooted in an ancient warrior tradition.
May 01, 2013:
Enterrtainment Weekly gave the world its first look at Sir Ben Kinglsey as Mazer Rackham - in full makeup! Check out those Maori tattoos.
May 02, 2013: Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford previewed the first trailer for
Ender's Game on
YouTube with a 10-second teaser of entirely new footage. They also announced an exciting
live Google Hangout with Bob Orci, Gavin Hood, and Asa Butterfield before the debut of the trailer.
May 03, 2013: Thanks to
@BKilek, we gave you your first look at the Ender's Game movie tie-in book covers. You can pick one up at Barnes and Noble -
Hardcover and
Paperback!
May 06, 2013: Summit
unveiled the official movie website, the IF Sentinel: a communication hub of the International Fleet with the fictional public of Ender's world.
May 07, 2013: The first
Ender's Game trailer debuted on Google and YouTube. With over 4 million views already, it won't hurt to watch it again, right?
Asa Butterfield also spoke with
Hollywood.com about Zero-G, Space Camp and what makes the character of Ender Wiggin so special.
May 08, 2013: Asa Butterfield participated in a
Reddit AMA.
May 09, 2013:
Summit confirmed that Steve Jablonsky (not James Horner) is to score
Ender's Game.
May 13, 2013: Cryptozoic's
Ender's Game trading cards
are most likely to include cast/crew autograph cards. Can't wait to get my hands on these.
May 17, 2013: Producers Bob Orci and and Alex Kurtzman briefly addressed 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:
"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."
May 21, 2013: Summit
released a new promotional photo of Colonel Graff and Ender -- with a great look at Dragon Army's flash suit helmet.
And we're back to today. Only 162 days to go, Launchies. Did you know it was 364 days to go
last time I posted a timeline? Look how far we've come!
How's everyone holding up?
