Spielberg to direct 'Ready Player One'

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

The book Ready Player One is chock full of references to Steven Spielberg movies, so the filmmaker will be right at home tackling the cinematic adaptation.

Warner Bros. Pictures announced Wednesday Spielberg is directing Ernest Cline's debut sci-fi novel, which is influenced heavily by video games, blockbuster films and pop culture of the 1980s, even though it's set in dystopian 2044. Zak Penn is writing the screenplay, which brings Spielberg back to Warner Bros., where he produced The Goonies and Gremlins back in the day.

Greg Silverman, president of creative development and worldwide production at Warner Bros., told Deadline.com that Spielberg was the dream director for the project. "We had an historic series of collaborations in the 1980s and 1990s, and have wanted to bring him back for years."

Ready Player One follows Wade Watts, a youngster living in squalor in futuristic Oklahoma who taps into the virtual utopia of the OASIS to seek out a treasure left there by the game's late creator. Whomever successfully finds this easter egg will inherit the enigmatic old man's estate and vast fortune.

Spielberg's next film, the thriller Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks, is in theaters Oct. 16, and his next film is expected to be an adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's book The BFG.

Cline's second tome, the coming-of-age adventure Armada, is out July 14.