Cultural WI: Ender's Game Succeeds

MerryPrankster

The film adaptation of Ender's Game premiered last November amid controversy about author Orson Scott Card's rather harsh* views on homosexuality, gay marriage, etc. The movie, despite receiving good reviews, ultimately fizzled at the box office.

(Possibly this was due to the boycott by gay-rights groups and/or the negative publicity they generated about the film, but the film itself had some issues--most notably for me not explaining that the Bugs had realized they'd made a mistake attacking humanity decades before and were sorry, which would explain why the dying Bug Queen forgave Ender for unknowingly obliterating her species when she could have easily killed him.)

So what if it succeeded? Perhaps the script could have been written to fix some of the non-ideological problems with the story. As far as the boycott was concerned, the gay-rights groups could have accepted Lions Gate's making the premiere a LGBT benefit as a victory over Card, or Lion's Gate could have played hardball and broken the boycott by threatening to make the premiere benefit the Mormon Church or some affiliated charity if the boycotting organizations didn't claim victory and call off the boycott.

*There's saying marriage in God's sight is between a man and a woman and then there's saying that if the government allows gay marriage violent revolution is justified. Seriously, that's just stupid.
 
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Herzen's love-child

It didn't lose money if you factor in the international take. It merely wasn't a "hit".
Although Card is probably deemed a poisoned property by Hollywood for the foreseeable future.

If it scored super big at the box office it would have heartened the American social right to a degree but no large lasting ramifications other than other Card authored properties possibly being in the works.
 
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Kalvan

Thing is, Ender's Game isn't the first Orson Scott Card novel to receive a movie adaption. That honor belongs to The Lost Boys, in 1987. There were also several attempts to turn Tales of Alvin Maker into a miniseries, first on NBC, then on Sci-Fi channel.

Now, granted, there were several issues with the adaptation that weakened it compared with the book, several of which weren't actually necessary. Merry Prankster, however, has already talked about some of them.

Arguably, the biggest problem with the film is that it will always be in the shadow of The Last Starfighter, and eventually the Halo and Mass Effect game series.
 

Kung Fucious

CthulhuFhtagn said:
I didn't think Card was the issue. It was just a mediocre movie.
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This, pretty much. I think it's "failure" (which is a relative word, it's not like Ender's Game was a bomb, it was more that it was just "fine" at the box office) had more to do with the films blandness and less to do with Card's socio-political views poisoning the well ahead of time.

That said, I have heard from multiple sources that Card publicly airing his views after DOMA was struck down infuriated Lionsgate, who intentionally kept him as far as possible from the press tours.

As far as what the cultural ramifications would be if the film was a hit, eh, probably not that much. If anything, the films success would probably draw more attention to Card's views.
 

MerryPrankster

Are there any specific PODs script-wise that'd help with some of the story problems? I didn't buy the DVD so I don't know what went on behind the scenes, how many drafts it went through, etc.

With many people OSC's blowhard-ery might have been the tipping point rather than them vowing not to see the movie no matter how good it was. People might be willing to ignore Geek-Out and friends if the movie gets better reviews.

Lion's Gate threatening to donate money to the Mormon Church if the critics don't shut up about OSC seems unlikely given how gay-friendly the company claims to be, even if Geek-Out is threatening their bottom line. Something like that, even if they agree to go through with the LGBT benefit premiere to give Geek-Out a face-saving victory, risks pissing off the SJWs even more and might make even more enemies (i.e. Christian groups who think the Mormons heretical and who don't want their money to support their activities).
 

LeX

They could've made Ender's Game really cool. Instead it became a generic sci-fi film, even if it wasn't terrible. That made it not a success IMO.
 

pompejus

Herzen's love-child said:
It didn't lose money if you factor in the international take. It merely wasn't a "hit".
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It did lose money. Just look at the figures:

wikipedia said:
Budget $110 million[2]


Ender's Game grossed $61.7 million in North America and $63.8 million in other parts of the world, for a worldwide gross of over $125.5 million.
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Since they don't include things like advertisements in the budget and since the studio gets a lot less (I believe roughly 15%) from oversees showing, this movie made quite a loss. A rough estimate is that movie makes as much money as it costs if the gross is twice the budget and even that doesn't work if most of the gross is from outside the USA.
 
Sabot Cat

Sabot Cat

Banned
Make the Formics less creepy. They were doing okay until the end... dear goodness was that kind of nauseating to sit through. [Yes I've read the book. Yes, they are giant bug things in the book. Nonetheless if I remember correctly, the Queen was communicating telepathically and was not actually there.]
 

BooNZ

Banned
pompejus said:
It did lose money. Just look at the figures:

Since they don't include things like advertisements in the budget and since the studio gets a lot less (I believe roughly 15%) from oversees showing, this movie made quite a loss. A rough estimate is that movie makes as much money as it costs if the gross is twice the budget and even that doesn't work if most of the gross is from outside the USA.
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Forbes suggests EG made a slim profit ($112mil receipts v $110mil budget) http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddgil...nders-game-the-biggest-indie-movie-ever-made/

Perhaps they received generous tax breaks...
 
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