The first movie of Ender’s Game – The Great Game was released in 2013 and was supposed to be the start of a whole saga. However, the project did not achieve the expected success and became a massive flop.
What kind of movie is this? Ender’s Game is a sci-fi film and is based on a novel by Orson Scott Card, published in 1985.
- Humanity is threatened by the Formics. The alien race could only be repelled through tactical skill.
- Therefore, Earth is now searching for children to train them into the best strategists. The most suitable candidate seems to be Andrew “Ender” Wiggin.
- To prepare for the next invasion, he is sent to a military school in Earth’s orbit. There he trains to save the future of humanity.
Among the actors are well-known names like Harrison Ford. The director was Gavin Hood, who was already responsible for the adaptation of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He believed in the saga and wanted to adapt two of the author’s books that take place in the same universe at the same time with the first part.
With a comfortable budget of about 103 million euros, the saga could have become a large science-fiction franchise like Star Wars or Star Trek. But unfortunately, the film failed at the box office with the first part.
The German trailer for Ender’s Game:
Boycott resulted in incredible losses
Why was the movie such a failure? In the comments on IMDb, many critics write that the film does not adhere closely enough to the book source. Especially hardcore fans express disappointment. However, there are also many positive ratings, resulting in an overall rating of 6.6 (via IMDb).
Ender’s Game had the misfortune of being released around the same time as Gravity. The film featuring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney received better ratings and scored 7.7 points on IMDb. Both films belong to the same genre, with Ender’s Game ultimately having to take a back seat.
There’s another reason why the film flopped. The author of the books reportedly spoke out against same-sex marriage before the film premiere. He never really apologized for this statement but explained that his views are irrelevant.
The author even joined the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage (via Salon). His hostile attitude towards homosexuals led to calls for boycott in the community.
Did the boycott achieve anything? In fact, the film could not bring the expected success. Despite a relatively low budget of about 103 million euros, Ender’s Game incurred a loss of nearly 63.6 million euros.
Therefore, all planned projects around the franchise were likely put on hold. Unfortunately, it did not achieve the hoped-for success and will probably not be picked up again anytime soon. Another film, whose remake led to great success, is Road House: New action film starring Jake Gyllenhaal makes the biggest film debut on Amazon Prime
