Steven Spielberg will helm the highly anticipated film adaptation of "Ready Player One," a cult favorite science fiction book that ironically makes several references to the famed director in its pages.
He's teaming with Warner Bros. on the project, which will mark the first time since 2001's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" that Spielberg has
worked with the studio, Deadline.com reported.
"We are thrilled to welcome Steven back to Warner Bros.," Greg Silverman, president of creative development and worldwide production for
Warner Bros. Pictures, said in a statement, according to Variety.
"We had an historic series of collaborations in the '80s and '90s and have wanted to bring him back for years," Silverman continued. "As for 'Ready Player One,' we have always felt that Steven was the dream director for this project."
Spielberg recently completed work on "Bridge of Spies" with Tom Hanks, and is about to start work on "The BFG."
The book "Ready Player One" is set in 2044 when a teenager named Wade Watts discovers a virtual utopia world the OASIS and starts to put together clues to the world's digital confines against opponents who will
kill for the same prize, according to Amazon.
Several Spielberg movies play a part in the 2011 book by Ernest Cline.
"I also absorbed the complete filmographies of each of his favorite directors," the Watts character says in the book as he studies the interests of digital utopia creator James Donovan Halliday. "Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And of course Kevin Smith."
Spielberg also directed "Indiana Jones" and "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial," which are both referenced and serve as cultural touch points in the novel.
Variety reported that Robert Zemeckis and Christopher Nolan had showed interest in "Ready Player One" in the past before Spielberg signed onto the project.
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