Orson Scott Card, author of science fiction novel classic "Ender's Game", gave an update this week on the progress of the film on his official message board. The project has been in and out of development for years, last making headlines for the hiring of "X2" and "Superman Returns" scribes Mike Dougherty and Dan Harris to adapt it. That news however was a long while back, not a peep has emerged since and Card himself explains why:

"The option with Warner Bros. was due to expire on December 7th. There was no filmable script - though in fairness to the writers so far, they may well have been following faithfully all that they were actually asked to do - EG is simply a very hard story to put in script form.

At the last minute, a committed Warner exec met with me and we worked out some key decisions. Warner is still strongly committed to making Ender's Game into a great movie, and we agreed to another year or so of option, starting with a new script written by me (a page-one rewrite not based on any previous script, including mine). Guess how I'll be spending my Christmas vacation.

This is very promising, I think. As far as I know, all other elements of the team remain together. I will be working closely with Chartoff Productions and with the Warner executive to get this script right. It will be faithful to the story, within the limitations of a two-hour form factor. Stuff has to be left out. But what's THERE will be true to the story in the books, even if it isn't word-for-word or point-for-point the same.

I want a movie people can sit through. Two hours if possible; no more than 2.5 hours. With two hours or less, you can get two showings a night at popular showtimes. That's the studio's goal; and it's mine, too. We're not doing Gandhi, here. It doesn't need to be ponderous. It needs NOT to be. It needs to be so good that people pack the theaters".