Fresh off recent casting news that potentially places actors Tye Sheridan (X-Men: Apocalypse), Simon Pegg (Star Trek Beyond), and Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) in the lead roles of director Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming movie Ready Player One, everything appears to be coming into place. Based on the best-selling novel by screenwriter Ernest Cline (Fanboys), Spielberg’s take on the source material has been described as being like, “A crystal ball,” meant to foretell our own future in the real world over the course of the next decade.
With Sheridan set to play central protagonist Wade Owen Watts/Parzival, Cooke in the role of chief love interest Samantha Evelyn Cook/Art3mis, and Pegg as primary antagonist Ogden Morrow, everything should play out quite nicely when Cline’s original virtual reality world called the OASIS hits big screens the world over in 2018. On that note, the latest casting news may have just found Spielberg another A-list performer and recent Oscar winning collaborator to fill out what is already a well-rounded cast.
According to THR, Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies) has just been cast as the creator of the OASIS, James Donovan Halliday, in what will stand as the fourth movie that he and Spielberg will have worked on together. Following his Oscar winning role in Bridge of Spies, Rylance appears to be quickly becoming the director’s go-to leading man, with the two also set to take the world by storm with The BFG later this year, as well as their recently announced collaboration in the forthcoming The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara.
The exact shooting schedule for Ready Player One is still in the midst of coming together, as Rylance is also involved in Christopher Nolan’s impending World War II drama Dunkirk. But given the fruitful collaborative efforts seen thus far between Spielberg and Rylance, it appears that there will be no undue difficulties in providing Rylance the time to work on both projects, as Nolan’s production begins filming in France this May, before Spielberg’s starts later on in June.
Given the impressive list of credits that Spielberg and Rylance have been able to collaboratively rack up over the course of the past few years, Ready Player One should mark a third fruitful partnership. And with the rest of the cast beginning to take more definite shape, Cline’s original novel should transform quite gracefully when it finally sees theatrical release in two years’ time.
Ready Player One will see theatrical release in the U.S. on March 30th, 2018.
