How 'The Martian' Impacted the 'Ready Player One' Movie

Ready Player One is headed from book to screen in 2018, thanks to a move by director Steven Spielberg to avoid competing with the next installment of Star Wars. One of the film’s producers talked about the sci-fi film for audiences at WonderCon, and made some small revelations.

The story, based on the book by Ernest Cline, revolves around a mysterious video game creator who has helped build our future world into a constant multiplayer experience. He’s hidden a fortune for anyone who can unravel various ‘80s arcade based puzzles, referencing everything from Pac-Man to Joust. Spielberg made some of the biggest blockbusters of the ‘80s, and producer Donald DeLine says that the film is right in that wheelhouse.

“It’s classic Steven Spielberg, right in the center of the sweet spot of really his classic work, but with this whole new world now,” DeLine told /Film.There could be no one better to bring this to the screen. We’ve had pretty darn good luck with getting all the various games and characters and brands to sign on. They were excited about it.”

A promise that it’s a return to form for Spielberg isn’t that big of stretch, considering the retro charm. If he wants to reference himself, he could sneak in a dig at the Atari E.T. video game that nearly destroyed the gaming industry.

The promise that game license holders have signed off on being a part of this title is great news, but also recalls last year’s much-hated PIXELS and how Q-Bert was forever ruined by Adam Sandler. On the positive, rumors of Simon Pegg joining Ready Player One have been circling, which seems like an excellent match for both character casting and general nerd culture pandering.

Meanwhile Andy Weir, the author of The Martian, has made a bizarre contribution to the Ready Player One universe: his fan fiction is now canon.

Turns out Weir wrote a short story called Lacero set in the world of RP1 that takes place before the events in the book, and Ernie Cline made sure it was included in the most recent printing of the novel. Weir accomplished the Impossible Dream of having your fanfic become canon in someone else’s universe. The announcement comes via a Facebook post that we’ve included below in its entirety. This is a pretty exciting story for such a little known author who has only sold an infinity number of books in the last year.