Just yesterday we brought you the news that Asa Butterfield will be the main character of the sci-fi adaptation Ender’s Game, with Harrison Ford possibly joining in. Now, the female lead of True Grit may be the female lead of this other upcoming film.
Variety is reporting that Hailee Steinfeld is in negotiations to star in Ender’s Game as Petra Arkanian, the only girl in the Salamander Army, and a child who befriends Ender (Butterfield).
Steinfeld was nominated at last year’s Oscars for her True Grit portrayal, and is set to play the title female in Romeo & Juliet. That movie is set to film in Italy soon, meaning that if she signs for Ender’s Game, she’ll shoot the sci-fi film right after in the Spring.
The synopsis of the novel is:
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender’s skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
Ender’s Game opens in theaters on March 15th, 2013.
