Ender's Game Movie Unlikely To Make Profit

The movie adaptation of Ender's Game, based on the book by notorious homophobic science-fiction author Orson Scott Card has basically completed its box-office run with a gross of just over $60 million domestically ($85 million worldwide) and it appears as if it will not make back its production budget of $110 million.

Ender's Game is a classic of science fiction, one of the rare books to win both top prizes in the genre, the Nebula and the Hugo. For that reason, I was interested in seeing the film, but ended up not doing so, primarily because the reviews indicated it simply was not good, not because of the gay geek-led boycott intended to punish Card for his virulent homophobia. However, many reports indicated that Card would not make any movie regardless of how successful it was. So in my view the boycott was ill-advised.

However, Card is making money on the sale of the book, which has been at the top of the New York Times paperback list.

If you want to punish Card, don't buy the book. However, at least the failure of the film makes it clear that there will not be any sequels, for which Card might have been able to negotiate more profit participation and also sell more books.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God