Geeks Out, the group behind the planned boycott of Ender's Game, the film adaptation of the 1985 best-selling novel by outspoken homophobe Orson Scott Card, says it appreciates Lionsgate Entertainment's public rejection of Card's and NOM's anti-gay worldview, but that the boycott is still on.
The simple fact is that Skip Ender's Game has never been about the content of the novel or the film Ender's Game. It's about money. It's about the money the company has already paid to Card and the potential millions he and the National Organization for Marriage stand to make off of the success of the film—our money.
A benefit premiere, indeed any outreach to the LGBT community by Lionsgate, ought to be much appreciated. What's clear is that whether or not they support his views, Lionsgate is standing by their man and their would-be blockbuster. They made the common, perhaps cynical, calculation that audiences wouldn't connect Ender's Game with Card's very public homophobia—or wouldn't care. Geeks OUT appreciates that most American families work for every dollar and care deeply about where that money goes and what it supports.
Skip Ender's Game is not a threat; it is a reality. Our pledge adds hundreds of signatures every day from sci-fi fans around the world who would rather stay home than support homophobia. We have only just started and Geeks OUT and its allies are prepared to carry on past November 1. Nothing Card nor Lionsgate has said changes the fact that skipping Ender's Game is the easiest way to ensure none of your dollars go to Orson Scott Card's and the National Organization for Marriage's extreme anti-gay agenda.
See the Skip Ender's Game pledge HERE.
There are those in the LGBT community who oppose the boycott, like Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.
Still, not every advocate of gay equality and same-sex marriage is convinced that turning away from “Ender's Game,” which cost about $110 million to make, is the best way to counter Mr. Card.
“No way am I boycotting,” said Dustin Lance Black, who in 2009 won an Oscar for writing “Milk,” about the gay activist Harvey Milk, and who campaigned against California's Proposition 8, which sought to ban gay marriage.
Speaking from London on Wednesday, Mr. Black — who, like Mr. Card, comes from a Mormon family — said he would rather engage with, than shut out, political and cultural adversaries. “We haven't been getting the numbers we've seen by disengaging,” Mr. Black said, referring to a rise in public acceptance of same-sex marriage and other measures of gay equality.
Summit executives declined to be interviewed about the boycott call or Mr. Card's involvement in the movie.
