UPDATE: Harrison Ford has now officially signed on the dotted line to take the role of Colonel Hyram Graff, in Gavin Hood's Ender's Game. Hailee Steinfeld has also committed to Petra Arkanian, and the cast is rounded out by Abigail Breslin, who'll be playing Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield)'s older sister Valentine.
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It appears there’s going to be a minor Hugo reunion on Ender’s Game, as writer/director Gavin Hood has now cast Ben Kingsley to star in the sci-fi film alongside young lead Asa Butterfield.
Hood has adapted Orson Scott Card’s classic sci-fi novel for Odd Lot Entertainment, and selected Butterfield to play Ender Wiggin, a prodigy who becomes part of mankind’s war against a pesky alien race known as the Formics. Rising quickly through the ranks at the Battle School, Ender is revealed as a master tactician.
True Grit’s Hailee Steinfeld looks likely to play fellow School warrior Petra Arkanian, and now Kingsley is aboard to play Mazer Rackham, a legendary war hero many had thought was dead (spoiler!). Harrison Ford is still being chased to play gruff School commander Colonel Hyrum Graff, but there's no official deal in place yet. Is it just us, fellow readers, or do you kinda wish the casting of those two characters was reversed?
Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are also aboard as producers, with the plan to start shooting in February. It seems that Card’s novel will finally be taken off the shelf marked “unfilmable” and put before the cameras…