Armada may already be out, but Ernest Cline fans now have a new date to look forward to: the movie adaptation of Ready Player One is scheduled for release on December 15th, 2017. Back in March it was announced that Steven Spielberg would be directing the film version of the popular sci-fi novel, but when someone has a scheduled as packed as Spielberg things tend to shift around quite a bit. With a confirmed release date, however, it appears that the movie is moving forward quickly after the director completes his next project, the Roald Dahl adaptation The BFG.

Ready Player One is a sci-fi action-adventure pop culture mash-up, set in a future dystopia in which all humanity spends its time in an elaborate VR simulation called The Oasis. When the creator of the simulation dies, it's announced that he has hidden an Easter egg deep within the virtual world, and whoever is able to discover it will inherent his entire company and fortune. In his efforts to find the egg, the lead character Parzival has to go through a series of challenges, all of which riff directly on '80s pop culture movies, TV shows, music, and video games. (The Back to the Future series, which Spielberg produced, also plays a minor role.)

The script for Ready Player One was written by Zak Penn, a writer that's worked on huge films like the X-Men movies and The Avengers, with projects like Pacific Rim 2 and one of the new Transformers films also on his plate.