Steven Spielberg has found a leading man for his Ready Player One. According to a story at Deadline, Tye Sheridan will play Wade Watts in the big-screen adaptation of Ernest Cline’s best-seller. Tye Sheridan joins a cast that already includes Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Bates Motel) as Ar3mis, an OASIS avatar belonging to the coincidentally-named Samantha Cook, and Ben Mendelsohn (Mississippi Grind, The Dark Knight Rises) as the story’s villain.
Set in the near future, Ready Player One follows outcast teenager Wade Watts, who escapes from his bleak surroundings by logging in to the OASIS, a globally networked virtual utopia where users can lead idyllic alternate lives. When the eccentric billionaire who created the OASIS dies, he offers up his vast fortune as the prize in an elaborate treasure hunt. Along with gamers from around the world, Wade joins the adventure, and quickly finds himself pitted against powerful corporate foes and other ruthless competitors who will do anything, in the oasis or the real world, to reach the treasure first.
A Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures production, Ready Player One is being directed by Spielberg, who is also producing alongside Donald De Line, under his De Line Pictures banner, Dan Farah and Kristie Macosko Krieger. Bruce Berman will serve as executive producer.
Tye Sheridan, who made his big screen debut in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, recently headlined the zombie comedy Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. He can next be seen starring as Scott Summers (aka Cyclops) in this summer’s mutant ensemble, X-Men: Apocalypse.
Look for Ready Player One to hit the big screen March 30, 2018.
