Steven Spielberg's 'Ready Player One' Movie Will Arrive December 2017

Briefly: It's official. Steven Spielberg is directing the Ready Player One movie next, adapted from Ernie Cline's bestselling novel about a dystopian future where a video gamer challenges the world to a match of pop culture wits. (I loved the book.) Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures today announced that production is coming together, starting up later this year, and they even have a release date. Warner Bros will open Spielberg's Ready Player One on December 15th, 2017, a little over two years from now. The film is being produced by Spielberg; Donald De Line, under his De Line Pictures banner; Dan Farah; and Spielberg’s longtime colleague Kristie Macosko Krieger; with Bruce Berman serving as executive producer. We'll be hearing much more about this as they begin to cast and start pre-production.

Here's one of the statements included in the press release regarding their plans for a late 2017 release:

Sue Kroll added, "From the success of the book, ‘Ready Player One’ already has a devoted following, and we’re excited for its fans and moviegoers everywhere to see this fantastically innovative story come to life. We know it couldn’t be in better hands, and look forward to working with Steven and the producers to bring it to the big screen."

This project certainly sounds like it's in good hands. Speaking of which, the script for Ready Player One comes from Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand, The Avengers), who rewrote a previous draft by Eric Eason and Cline himself. At one point, there was a rumor that Warner Bros wanted Christopher Nolan to direct this, but as an alternative, Spielberg is certainly acceptable. In fact, when I read the book, I kept thinking "if they make this into a movie they're going to need a very talented, very powerful director" because there are so many tiny aspects to it that are important. Not only getting all of the pop culture references right, but it's a story created by geeks for geeks, and they need a team of geeks to bring it to the big screen, too. I will be watching this closely and following it all the way up until release. In the meantime, pick up Ernie's new book.