Lionsgate debuted the very first trailer for Ender's Game today at CinemaCon. Luckily we were there to report every single thing that we saw — including the very first look at the Battle Room.


The trailer's opening shot takes place in a purpled-sky filled with Bugger ships. The swarms of alien ships move like a hive against a smaller group of human jets. Explosions and alien weaponry crash in the atmosphere. We can only assume that this is one of Mazer Rackham's infamous battles, which is later used as big-time propaganda against the war with the Formics (an insect like alien race).

Over the war-porn booms the voice of Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford), "They know our strategies, they know our weaknesses, and they nearly destroyed us.... We need a new weapon."


Cut to a shot of Ender Wiggen (Asa Butterfield) opening his eyes. This is the new weapon Graff is talking about. You realize that Graff is ready to build a child army. Additional tweens appear wearing skin-tight battle suits. The suits are very shiny. Ender is handed a helmet with the Salamander logo on it. Then things start to get very, very fast. But more importantly we got our first look at the Battle Room.

Located in a giant clear globe in the middle of the Battle School space station (in space obviously), the child warriors train for zero-G battle. The room itself looked like a giant green-house ball. Inside were random obstacles and students gliding and spinning around. We didn't get a good look at the zero-gravity movement, but we did get a few shots of kids landing on the side of the globe and propelling themselves forward. It's much bigger than we'd ever imagined it to be while reading the book, but that makes sense.

Other things we caught in the trailer: Ender saying a very tear-filled goodbye to his sister, Valentine (played by Abigail Breslin). A shot of a group of kids playing baseball in a cold space station hallway while Major Gwen Anderson (Viola Davis) asks, "you don't see them as children, do you?" A few shots of a Formic planet that is red, sandy and full of giant, jutting mountains. It looks like there's a base set up inside the mountains.


The very final scene of the trailer shows Ender's big act as a child soldier. He takes a stage and cues up an unseen touchscreen-like apparatus, like he's getting ready to conduct an orchestra (Minority Report-style). The camera pivots and you can see he's looking out into a projected image space. Ender raises his hands and screams, "NOW!" The end.

All in all, it's WAY too early to say much. But the action looks good, and Butterfield is a fantastic casting decision for Ender. There wasn't enough Battle Room footage shown to decide if it looked authentic or not, but it did look cool. We remain cautiously optimistic.


The trailer will debut on May 17th in front of Star Trek Into Darkness.