Another key young actor involved in a key young novel. Hailee Steinfeld is in talks to play the female lead in Gavin Hood‘s adaptation of Orson Scott Card‘s Ender’s Game, which is being produced by Summit Entertainment. Hood’s directing from his own script.

Steinfeld would play Petra Arkanian, “the only girl in Salamander Army who quickly becomes Ender’s ally and trusted right hand [Variety].”

The filmmaker’s choice for the titular Ender was and now officially is Hugo‘s Asa Butterfield (let’s not even mention the possibility of Harrison Ford, who’s being sought after to play Colonel Hyrum Graff, the man who trains these young children). Hood is perhaps best known for Tsotsi, which won the Foreign Film Oscar in 2006. Following the win, Hood took on both X-Men Origins: Origins and the political film Rendition, both which received harsh reviews from critics. Which is a long way to say that the man needs a comeback.

Card’s novel is the first in a very successful series concerning a future version of Earth in which an endangered mankind are prepping to fight against the alien Formics,training young children for battle. In their training, they find a last hope in the young human Ender Wiggin and his ingenius for battle tactics. What follows is a franchise worth of secrets, realizations and motivations.

Summit hopes to release the much-anticipated film on March 15, 2013.

Are you a fan of this series of books? Does this cast fit the description in your head?

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