Rumor: Possible New Stilson Actor?

In the press release issued Monday by the Ender's Game production team, a Caleb J. Thaggard was listed for the role of Stilson. This came as a bit of a surprise since it had been previously announced that Brendan Meyer was playing the role - and he is as of this morning still listed as filming Ender's Game on IMDB.

It seems either Meyer has been replaced or someone made a slight error in the press release.

Keep checking back and I'll update this post as soon as we hear anything.

Edit: And then we have this from today:

All very mysterious. :)

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Production at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility

Image credit: LMSSC-MO

As many have probably heard by now, filming on the upcoming Ender's Game movie has just started in Louisiana. According to a local news channel in New Orleans, filming will be taking place at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in a space that is now being occupied by Big Easy Studios. The production crew is scheduled to occupy the facility for over a year.

Katie Williams, Director of Film New Orleans, reported that over 46 big-budget productions were shot in New Orleans this past year, several at the Michoud Assembly Facility, including G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Click here for the news article and accompanying video.

With the discontinuation of NASA's space shuttle program, many of the facilities previously used for spacecraft construction were left vacant. The MAF is thus being occupied and rented not only by Big Easy Studios and the Ender's Game crew, but also by the US Coast Guard, the USDA National Finance Center and other production teams. (Source)

Universial Studios was scheduled to begin filming two unnamed movies at the MAF in January, while MGM and Disney were also looking to secure an area for production purposes in the over 2 million square feet of space.

The Michoud Assembly Facility will later be the manufacturing site for NASA's next big project: the Orion Spacecraft, designed for deep space exploration. (nasaspaceflight.com)

As well as announcing the start of filming, an official news release from yesterday included a lengthy synopsis of the film:

In the near future, a hostile alien race (Formics) have attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of 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 Fleet (IF) 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. Ender easily masters increasingly difficult war games, distinguishing himself and winning respect amongst his peers at Battle School. Ordained by Graff as the IF's next great hope, Ender is promoted to Command School. Once there, he's trained by Rackham himself to lead his fellow soldiers into an epic battle that will determine the future of Earth and humankind.

Filming is scheduled to continue through June 8th.

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And so it begins!

Today marks the first day of filming for Ender's Game - they are set to finish in New Orleans on the 8th of June. According to Alexis Allen, who was the casting director for the movie extras, this is day 1 of 70.

It's a bit crazy that we still have over a year to go before the movie hits theaters -- but now that they've officially started filming, it all seems a bit more real than it did yesterday.

After a super long wait, this is actually happening.

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New Casting Information: Nonso Anozie to Play "Sergeant Dap"

According to Deadline Hollywood, we have some new casting information:

Nonso Anozie will be playing Sergeant Dap in the upcoming Ender's Game film. I'm assuming this is the same "Dap" who is in charge of the launchie group Ender is a part of, aka "mom." :)

Another Wiggin has also been cast: Stevie Ray Dallimore will be playing the part of Ender’s father, John Wiggin.

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Ender’s Mother Cast

According to her Twitter, actress Andrea Powell will be joining the rest of the Ender’s Game cast as Ender’s mother, Theresa Wiggin.

Check out her IMDB page here.

I’m pretty unfamiliar with her work, myself. What do the rest of you think?

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Abigail Breslin talks “Ender’s Game” at Rebecca Minkoff show

    Abigail Breslin told Newsday she is looking forward to working with Harrison Ford on her upcoming film "Ender's Game," based on the novel of the same name by Orson Scott Card.

    "I'm really excited for it,” she said. "It's a really interesting story, and I hope all of the fans of the book are going to love it.”

I'm curious how much of a role Valentine is going to play in the film.  I can see her showing up much more than she ever did in the book — especially since there isn't going to be this "aging" process with the characters. They clearly can't imply that Ender/Valentine are separated by the I.F. for so long if they plan to reunite them at any point in the film. What about the scene on the lake? Do you guys think that will happen?

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Major Anderson Will Be Played By Viola Davis

Ender's Ansible recently got in touch with a spokesperson from the Ender's Game film and has confirmed that Viola Davis will be playing Major Anderson in the film adaptation of the book.

According to EA, the character being played by a woman is not so surprising as "Major Anderson has been written as a female in previous versions of the script."

Viola Davis is a Tony Award-winning actress and was also recently nominated for an Academy Award for her role in "The Help."
What do you guys think? Can you play around with your head canon and picture Major Anderson as a woman?

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Orson Scott Card on the Ender’s Game Movie

At least as good as the book, we hope better because [dramatic pause] it'll be shorter! We have to cut out a lot. I mean I can tell you that the plan right now is Ender agrees to go to battle school there at home and the next thing we see is he's walking in the door to Bonzo's army and everything in between is there to read in the book. But we will cut straight to the chase because we have to get him out of Battle School halfway through this movie or we don't have time to make the ending work. That's what we found out draft after draft. […] We're not going to spend a lot of time in the battleroom. It'll be great; It'll look terrific. When you see it you go ‘Yes! That's just how I hoped it would be! That's- they did a wonderful job.' And then you won't have to look at it much because we'll go on with the story, because it's a human story. It's not a sports story or even a military story. It's about human relationships.

- October 2010

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Ender's Game Cast Party

Pictured from left to right: Conor Carrol/Bernard - Asa Buttefield/Ender - Aramis Knight/Bean - Gavin Hood/Ender’s Game director - Khylin Rhambo/Dink - Moises Arias/Bonzo - Brandon Soo Hoo/Fly Molo - Suraj Partha/Alai

What do you guys think about the haircuts?

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Costume Fitting

Khylin Rhambo (Dink) at an Ender's Game "costume fitting" -- does this have something to do with the flash suits?

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Haircut

Looks like all the kids had to get “military” haircuts for the Ender’s Game movie yesterday.

(Taken from Asa Butterfield's Twitter)

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