Enders Game To Get Card-Rebutting LGBT Benefit Premiere

ORSON SCOTT CARD, the author of the original Ender's Game novel, is a member of The National Organisation For Marriage - a misnomer, really, because one of their targets actually is marriage, specifically the marriage of same-sex partners.



You know, this really isn't the first time we've mentioned this about Card at Bleeding Cool. It's maybe not even the tenth.




Indeed, this is something that crops up in conversation pretty much every time Card is mentioned these days, not just here, and I'm not at all surprised that Lionsgate, the distributors of the upcoming Ender's Game movie, have chosen to address this. If anything, it seems a little like they've had their tardy shoes on.



Perhaps the final straw was the campaign by a group called Geeks Out asking for a boycott of the film.



Lionsgate's statement not only distances the messages and meanings of their film from Card's ongoing campaign and commentary, it promises a premiere of the movie to benefit the LGBT community. Here's the full thing.



As proud longtime supporters of the LGBT community, champions of films ranging from Gods and Monsters to The Perks of Being a Wallflower and a Company that is proud to have recognized same-sex unions and domestic partnerships within its employee benefits policies for many years, we obviously do not agree with the personal views of Orson Scott Card and those of the National Organization for Marriage.



However, they are completely irrelevant to a discussion of Ender's Game.The simple fact is that neither the underlying book nor the film itself reflect these views in any way, shape or form.On the contrary, the film not only transports viewers to an entertaining and action-filled world, but it does so with positive and inspiring characters who ultimately deliver an ennobling and life-affirming message.



Lionsgate will continue its longstanding commitment to the LGBT community by exploring new ways we can support LGBT causes and, as part of this ongoing process, will host a benefit premiere for Ender's Game.



Even if Card's book was a raging fountain of homophobia - I don't remember it that way, and it's even possible that his calling the enemy creatures "buggers" could be a coincidence - then I wouldn't expect the film would have to follow suit. Consider Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, for example, which took the right wing politics of Robert Heinlein's novel and sculpted them into a most-definitely left-leaning film.



I'm very excited by the prospect of Ender's Game and am looking forward to its Comic-Con presentation a good deal. Card, as you might expect, will not be there.
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