Simon Pegg is in talks to play the co-creator of an online utopia, whose appearance is described as a cross between Albert Einstein and Santa Claus, in the Steven Spielberg science fiction movie Ready Player One, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Spielberg’s next film but one – after a live-action version of Roald Dahl’s The BFG, starring Mark Rylance – is based on Ernest Cline’s hit 2011 novel about a virtual world named Oasis. Mud’s Tye Sheridan will star as Wade Watts, a teenager from the ghettos of 2044 Oklahoma who vies with millions of others to uncover a mysterious “Easter egg”: the game’s late founder has stipulated that his entire fortune will be delivered to the player who uncovers it.

Steven Spielberg to direct adaptation of virtual reality novel Ready Player One Read more

Pegg is in line to play Ogden “Og” Morrow, the best friend and colleague of Oasis’s Howard Hughes-like creator, James Donovan. He has been described as the Steve Wozniak to Donovan’s Steve Jobs, a reference to the famous Apple partnership. A description of Morrow in the book reads: “His wild grey hair and long beard made him look like a cross between Albert Einstein and Santa Claus. That comparison was also a pretty good description of his personality.”

Ready Player One is scheduled for a March 2018 release and will be Spielberg’s first project at studio Warner Brothers since 2001’s AI: Artificial Intelligence, the science fiction tale he inherited from Stanley Kubrick. The film-maker has signalled he will avoid the 80s references to films such as the Indiana Jones series, The Goonies and Back to the Future that pepper the novel, for fear of referencing his own work. “The movie won’t have any of my films in it,” Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly in November. “I’m not putting myself in this movie … They reference so many 80s movies. I’m just going to leave myself out of it. I can’t do that. Too self-referential.”

Pegg will next reprise his role as Starship Enterprise engineering chief Scotty in Star Trek Beyond, which he has also co-written. Justin Lin’s film is due to arrive in cinemas on 22 July.

