Orson Scott Card Clarifies his Co-Producer Status, and more...

In an interview, published today on The Daily Universe, the student-produced online news site at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, Ender's Game author clarified some issues that have been discussed quite frequently in recent weeks.

You can read the entire, extensive interview over at their website, but here are the most relevant parts:

On his status as a Co-Producer of the Ender's Game movie:

"My work as co-producer was all done in the early stages. Once Gavin Hood took over, my help was no longer required."

On the screenplay he wrote, and his contribution to the script that was used:

"I realized that to work, the script had to make the audience want to have Ender as their leader — not because he was so smart, but because they could trust him completely. But that is not the script that was filmed. The director, Gavin Hood, shot the script he wrote himself, without reference to mine. [...] The screenplay you see on the screen was 100 percent Gavin Hood. None of my writing was used. That was the decision that Odd Lot and Summit made; it was their money at risk, and they invested in the writer they believed in. I have no complaints."

That means in summary that Card's involvement in the movie project is limited to contributing his brilliant, original story. His co-production work ended with Gavin Hood taking over, and Gavin wrote an entirely new script "without any reference" to the one Card wrote.

Despite that fact, Card seems to be pleased with the finished movie, judging from the rough cut he has seen already. Here's what he has to say about how Gavin Hood turned his story into a big budget Hollywood movie:

"I've seen a rough cut, and while there are changes that will annoy some fans, it's a sharp, tight, emotional movie that contains much of what works in Ender's Game. Best of all, the movie doesn't erase a single word of the book. So people who first encounter the story in the movie can always turn to the book to get the whole thing. And those who see only the movie will still have had a good time in the theater. Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, and all the other kids and adults do a fine job in their roles, and the designs look great.

I think the special effects and acrobatic teams did the Battle Room as well as it can possibly be done. Good thing, too, because the kids about killed themselves learning how to make the moves on wires that the Cirque de Soleil professionals taught them to do. I bet they wished more than once that there had been a way to really film it in freefall.

Thanks to Enderwiggin.net for pointing us to the interview.