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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! Click Ready Player One to subscribe to Nerdist. Dan has
the best Spring anime on The Dan Cave and hey! Sign up for Vessel and you can get many
of your favorite Nerdist videos two days earlier than the rest of the world! Go to Vessel.com/Nerdist
for how! Finally head on over to Nerdist.com for even more Nerdist News!
Hey, how do you get this Kindle to work? It seems really floppy, is it supposed to do
this?