Steven Spielberg has finally nailed down the lead role for his forthcoming adaptation of Ready Player One. After an intensive multi-month search, Spielberg settled on Tye Sheridan for the role of the film’s protagonist, Wade.
Sheridan has earned accolade for roles in films like The Stanford Prison Experiment and Mud, but he’ll undoubtedly be more familiar to movie audiences come this spring when he portrays Cyclops in X-Men: Apocalypse.
Ready Player One is an adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 best-selling dystopian sci-fi novel in which teens escape the harsh reality of their world into OASIS, a digital environment structured after the pop culture of the ’70s and ’80s. When Wade discovers to the hidden treasure locked within the game, he must protect himself from other players desperate to claim victory themselves, including the Canadian blogger and object of his affection, Sam, aka Art3mis (played by Olivia Cooke). Ben Mendelsohn has been cast as Nolan Sorrento, a high-ranking official at Innovative Online Industries, a multinational Internet service provider that hopes to take over and monetize the OASIS.
Update – Friday, March 18th at 12:55 p.m. CT: According to The Hollywood Reporter, Simon Pegg is in line to play the role of Orgen Morrow, the co-creator of OASIS.
Update – Wednesday, April 13th at 11:25 a.m. CT: Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance has also joined the cast, set to portray James Donovan Halliday, “the creator of OASIS, an enigmatic figure with shades of Howard Hughes and Steve Jobs,” notes The Hollywood Reporter.
The film is currently in pre-production with a targeted release date of March 30th, 2018.
