Ready Player One?
More like Ready Player Fun.
Yeeeaaah!
Books are awesome.
Steven Spielberg’s reuniting with Tom Hanks
for a thriller called Bridge of Spies later
this year, then returning to the world of
kiddie movies with The BFG in 2016, and now
we know how he’ll follow up those nostalgic
throwbacks - with a double-dip into the nostalgia-laden,
pop culture-filled world of Ready Player One!
The super-freaking-great novel, which is currently
our ongoing Nerdist Book Club pick on Nerdist.com,
had everyone from Robert Zemeckis to Christopher
Nolan interested in directing, but lucky for
us, the man to bring Ready Player One to life
will be the man responsible for a whole bunch
of the pop culture the book revolves around.
If you don’t already know - Ready Player
One is a novel by Ernest Cline that tells
the story of a dystopian earth in the year
2044 where the planet is wasting away and
almost everyone escapes their horrible existence
in the virtual reality world of Oasis.
When the creator of Oasis dies, our underdog
teen hero Wade Watts discovers the first easter
egg in a massive 80s-pop-culture-themed scavenger
hunt that’ll give one lucky winner control
over the entire virtual world.
So it’s kinda like Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory meets Goonies meets Tron meets Second
Life.
That’s terrifying.
With hundreds of references to your favorite
movies, books, video games, and TV shows.
And that’s where our only real concern with
a Ready Player One movie lies.
Will Warner Brothers, the studio making the
flick, be able to include properties like
War Games, Star Wars, Back to the Future,
Atari, and The Muppets even though they’re
all owned by completely different studios?
The days of Who Framed Roger Rabbit are long
gone.
After all, pop culture is integral to the
plot of Ready Player One, and it’d be a
real shame to lose some of the book’s best
sequences.
But maybe we don’t have to worry - this
is, after all, the studio that cameo-packed
The Lego Movie.
And then there’s the whole Spielberg thing.
I mean, who can even say no to that guy?
He’s just, he’s just so damn cute.
And, like, also the most beloved filmmaker
in history.
Plus, we’ve got Zak Penn, the guy behind
The Incredible Hulk, X-2, and soon Pacific
Rim 2 penning the current draft of the script
with help from Ernest Cline himself.
The pair are super-chummy after collaborating
on Atari: Game Over, the documentary about
digging up all those ET cartridges in the
desert, so on paper we’re definitely in
good hands.
For my money, the most exciting thing about
all this is what we’re going to get visually
from Spielberg.
In adapting a book that’s deeply influenced
by his greatest works as a director and producer
- like Indiana Jones, E.T., Goonies, Back
to the Future, and many many more - we may
get to see some tricks the beard hasn’t
pulled on-screen in some time.
Nevermind the fun of seeing him reference
his own works, and depending on how close
they stick to the book - himself.
It’s gonna be a lot of fun.
No doubt there.
But what do you guys think?
Is Spielberg the right man for the job?
I mean... duh.
Come on.
New question: how freaking excited are you?!
Let’s discuss!
Ermagerd!
We can talk in the comments below!
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Hey, how do you get this Kindle to work?
It seems really floppy, is it supposed to
do this?
