The U.S. Marine Corps has Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card on its recommended reading list for officers, saying that it offers "lessons in training methodology, leadership, and ethics as well."

For the wirework in the battle room, the actors trained for a month with individual Cirque du Soleil members so they could do the wire performances themselves.

DIRECTOR CAMEO (Gavin Hood): The giant in the Mind Game.

Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, and several cast members that portray Battle School cadets in the film went to Space Camp prior to filming to train for zero gravity sequences.

To achieve the effect of weightlessness for the actors and actresses in the battle room, two rigs were invented for this movie, used to capture zero gravity scenes. First was a lollipop arm, which is like a counter-balance offering a full range of motion. The second innovation was a "people crane". It's a contraption, sort of like the lollipop arm, but put on air pucks so that the effects is like you are floating around in the air.

Though only briefly visible the name tags on all of the character's uniforms have the corresponding braille characters on them.

Several props used in the film were created using 3D printers, including a model of Mazer Rackham's ship that you'll see hanging in Ender's quarters.

Sir Ben Kingsley, who is featured prominently in the movie's marketing, doesn't appear until seventy minutes into the movie.

The alien Formics have the features and behaviors of ants. The compound Formic Acid is found in the venom of ants.

Each of the "stars" in the battle room, objects used for cover against laser fire from the opposing team, weighed thirteen thousand pounds.

Portions of the movie were shot at N.A.S.A.'s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, where the massive external tanks for the space shuttle program were constructed.

Asa Butterfield grew three inches during filming.

The battle room featured in the movie is the diameter of three football fields.

In the early 2000s, Jake Lloyd was one of the leading candidates to play Ender. Coincidentally, in 2000, when Lloyd appeared in a magazine ad campaign to promote library patronage, he was shown reading a copy of "Ender's Game".

The producers consulted with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to discuss some of the future space shuttle technology depicted in the movie.

In the book, children entered Battle School at six years of age. They trained there for several years before progressing to Command School during adolescence.

Special wheel harnesses that allowed free range in motion were fitted to actors and actresses, for filming of Battle Room scenes. Because these scenes are supposed to take place in a null gravity environment, the actors and actresses had to carefully choreograph their movements, to give the accurate illusion of floating.

The city featured in the "Never Again" propaganda poster was central Hong Kong.

Digital Domain, the visual effects house behind this movie (and movies like Iron Man 3 (2013) ) created a demo reel of the battle room before production that helped the producers successfully raise financing independently.

This movie was once developed at Warner Brothers, intended to be directing vehicle for Wolfgang Petersen, to be released around 2003. The studio acquired the rights in the mid 1990s with Orson Scott Card began writing the screenplay in 1996.

Director Gavin Hood was drafted into South Africa's Army at age seventeen.

There are nine hundred fifty effects shots in this movie. Digital Domain (one of the main financiers of the film) contributed seven hundred (about seventy-five percent) of the total.

This movie was a minor box-office failure, and was listed in Variety's "Biggest Box-Office Bombs of 2013", even though it lost very little money in the worldwide market.

During the game at the beginning of the movie, the ship piloted by Ender closely resembles the Millennium Falcon, the ship piloted by Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in the Star Wars film franchise.

Sir Ben Kingsley and Asa Butterfield appeared in Hugo Cabret (2011).

Mazer Rackham's jet is a a United States Marine Corps Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II. It features stealth and STOVL capabilities.

According to Director Gavin Hood's commentary, several planned scenes were cut due to financing problems when one of the investors backed out of the project. The same happened with planned CGI effects when one of the CGI studios working on the movie went bankrupt during production.

Ender was not supposed to meet Bean at his launch. In fact, Bean was not even in his launch group.

Harrison Ford described Colonel Graff as a mentor and a manipulator.

The cast includes two Oscar winners: Sir Ben Kingsley and Viola Davis, and three Oscar nominees: Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, and Abigail Breslin.

In the book, Ender kills the Stilson boy and Bonzo, although Graff never tells him, and he does not find out until he is tried for murder in both cases after the war. Both cases, however, are ruled as self defense.

When Ender (Asa Butterfield) asks Mazer Rackham (Sir Ben Kingsley) about his tattoos, he replies that it's his way to "speak for the dead". After the Final Battle and finding the Formic Queen Egg, Ender takes on the role and pseudonym of "Speaker For the Dead". He learns and understands the deceased, and speaks upon their behalf, telling their story whether it be through a book or speech. His first subject is the Formic Race, but more specifically, the Queens.

The markings on the Queen's face at the end when she shows Ender the cocoon are very similar to the tattoos of Mazer Rackham.

During the final battle, Ender's subordinates are sitting in front of transparent screens controlling the attack ships. Several times it can be seen that they are using a left-hand Razer Nostromo computer gaming keypad.

Mazer Rackham is of the Maori people, the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand.

The abandoned sequel would likely have been an adaptation of Orson Scott Card's sequel novel "Speaker for the Dead", which is set a few decades after the war and Ender Wiggin's disappearance.