On Nov. 1, "Ender's Game" hits theaters nationwide.
The film, based on the novel by Orson Scott Card, was written and directed by Gavin Hood. The film had a number of producers, including Roberto Orci, who spoke with Latinos Post a few weeks ago regarding the project. "Ender's Game" is near and dear to Orci, who fell in love with the novel from a young age and has seen its realization as a passion project. His main aim in making the film was to remain faithful to Card's written words, but he actually struggled to find a version that suited this vision.
"The greatest challenge was adapting the book. When I started working on this project I found that a lot of adaptations wanted to change the ending, but I always wanted to preserve the story as it was in the book," Orci said. Regarding the difficulties of adapting the book faithfully, Orci noted that most of the book is written as an interior monologue with the main character's thoughts dominating the writing. "[Adapting the book] was obviously very difficult because a lot of the novel is made up of Ender's thoughts, which are not always easy to express literally onscreen," he added.
He did note that the film contained one ingredient that the book could never have. "The book does not have the face of Asa Butterfield or Harrison Ford or Ben Kingsley and everything they emote with just their faces," he noted.
Orci previously worked with Ford on the 2011 film "Cowboys and Aliens" and stated that he had tremendous respect for the actor. "Harrison has gravitas. He is a terrific actor and professional," said Orci before noting that "Ender's Game" was the ideal project for Ford to do at this point in his career. "He made his name with Star Wars and now, with this film, he has evolved into the teacher of the world's savior."
Orciwent on to speak about his upcoming show "El Rey," for which he has partnered with celebrated director Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez is slated to direct the first episode of the series, which tells the story of a soccer player who is a secret agent by night. "He is basically the Latino James Bond," said Orci.
He also took some time to talk about his work on the hotly anticipated "Star Trek 3." With franchise director J.J. Abrams working on "Star Wars: Episode VII," Orci revealed that he has met with a number of directors for the upcoming project and could make a pick one soon. "I've met with a few very good ones that I really like and we should be making a decision soon," he said.
He also revealed that the "Mummy Reboot" had a new script and would be entering into production soon. "We have a great script by Jon Spaihts and we are hoping to move forward with it in the coming year." Orci's IMDB page states that he is slated to be the executive producer on "The Amazing Spider-Man 4" and that he will also serve as the Executive Producer on the TV movie "Secret Cabinet" and "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." He is also slated to produce "Van Helsing."
Orci was born in Mexico City to a Mexican father and Cuban mother and is one of the most prominent Latin Americans in the movie industry, and he expects more Latinos to step onto the Hollywood stage in coming years.
"The future's a great one [for Latinos in the film industry]," he said before talking about the Latin American influence on the industry. "The studios are starting to realize that the Latinos are a huge part of the population and one of the major audiences of cinema in modern day. Studios are also realizing that the Latinos are all over social media and that this alone makes them a strong force.
"I think we will see more content geared toward them and more prominent Latino filmmakers will succeed in Hollywood."
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