The new movie Ender’s Game, based on the revered 1985 sci-fi novel by Orson Scott Card, will have a big presence at Comic-Con this month … but while stars like Harrison Ford and Hailee Steinfeld are among those heading down to San Diego for the film’s panel, Card won’t be attending, and he may have only himself to blame for it. The 61-year-old Card has come under fire recently for his virulent anti-gay rhetoric, and it’s started to cost him money: DC Comics put the kibosh on a Card-penned Superman story after fans cried foul, and a movement is starting to boycott the Ender’s Game movie in order to send a message to Card and those who would do business with him. Summit, the studio behind Ender’s Game, has no doubt gotten that message — they’ve minimized Card’s role in the promotion as much as possible — but what does Card himself think of the boycott?
Though Card once argued that gay people “cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within … society,” he now claims to see the writing on the wall. “With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot,” Card wrote in a statement to EW. “The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will, sooner or later, give legal force in every state to any marriage contract recognized by any other state. Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.”
Those “victorious proponents” may find Card’s cagey claim hard to take — Card wasn’t exactly showing tolerance when he once said, “Marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy” — but whether it will have any effect on the film’s box office remains to be seen. Ender’s Game is due out November 1.
