Steven Spielberg is gearing up to shoot Ready Player One, the long-awaited adaptation of Ernest Cline's sci-fi novel, for a 2017 release date. Warner Bros., Dreamworks and Village Roadshow will produce the film, as written by Zak Penn.
Cline's book is a detailed homage to '80s popular culture, framed through a virtual reality gaming portal called OASIS. Set in a futuristic America that's so run down people retreat within the simulation for sanctuary, the plot follows Wade Watts, a dedicated retro geek and gamer. His addiction to OASIS becomes more valuable when its creator, James Halliday, dies and leaves a series of puzzles and riddles encoded within the system.
What's deemed most troublesome about the adaptation is the nature of those riddles - they're all interwoven with real world pop culture icons from the '70s and '80s. If Spielberg's going to do the book justice, he's going to have to grease a few wheels to secure the rights to any relevant properties owned by other studios.
Ready Player One opens on December 15, 2017.
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