Spielberg Signs On For 'Ready Player One' Movie

In some of the most meta news you'll hear, Steven Spielberg will direct Ready Player One , the hugely anticipated film adaptation of Ernest Cline's dystopian science fiction novel. Cline's virtual reality-focused book contains loads of references to Spielberg, so it seems only fitting that the director steps up to the task. Ready Player One could be considered an homage to 1980s pop culture, including its video games, movies, and TV, and if Spielberg can't take on a driving vision for that, then frankly I don't know who else could.

Ready Player One has been called a cross between The Matrix and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I'd also add in a bit of the BBC's Black Mirror, if that show wasn't always such a downer. (Though I mean that in the best way.) It's set in a near future where teenager Wade Watts goes into a virtual reality gaming system called OASIS to find an Easter egg that would allow the person who retrieves it to inherit OASIS itself and the creator's fortunes. And to find that Easter egg? The gamer has to solve the creator's puzzles, based on mostly 1980s and 1990s pop culture. This is where Spielberg directing becomes absolutely bananas and perfect. In fact, Warner Bros. Studios' president of creative development Greg Silverman said that Spielberg was the "dream director" for this project.

Spielberg hasn't worked with Warner Bros. in 14 years, so Ready Player One will be his triumphant return, not just to the studio, but to science fiction. The last film he directed with Warner Bros. was 2001's A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. He served as producer for two of my iconic childhood movies with the studio, Gremlins and Goonies.

Cline's second novel Armada is due out in July.