TrackingBoard.com reports that Warner Bros. is currently cozying up to Christopher Nolan in an effort to get him to helm their upcoming science fiction property, "Ready Player One."
"Ready Player One" is based on the wonderful 2011 novel by Ernest Cline. The story follows a teenager who hunts for treasures hidden in virtual reality MMO called, OASIS. The hunt for these treasures is part of a much larger game constructed by OASIS' deceased creator. As the teen begins solving the hunt's pop culture-savvy puzzles and clues, he finds that other, more malicious hunters are also playing the game, and will kill anyone who stands in their way.
Zak Penn has written a screenplay adaption of Cline's novel for Warner Bros. for an eventual release. There is no word if Nolan is even considering the offer, but a science-fiction thriller like "Ready Player One" certainly falls under his purview. Having just come of "Interstellar," which was filled with similar mind-bending visuals, he may be looking for a change of pace. Also, Nolan typically works on projects of his own design, save for the" Dark Knight" trilogy, but he could make another exception.
As a personal aside here, "Ready Player One" is one of my favorite books of the past decade. I've read it four times (the last time was about a month ago) since it came out, and it gets better every time I read it. That being said, I don't feel that Nolan is the right director for this project. While his films are technically proficient and intelligent, I feel the majority of them lack emotional depth, which would be critical in a film adaptation of "Ready Player One." Also, there are a ton of video game and pop culture references laced throughout the narrative that are integral to making the overall story "work." Nolan seems detached, or too cool, for those kinds of things to really get this property and, in turn, make it the quality film it deserves to be. Someone like Duncan Jones ("Moon" and the upcoming "Warcraft" film) seems much better suited to tackle this project.
Beyond all that, I still don't see how they are going to wrangle the rights and licenses to all the various films, songs, video games, characters and intellectual properties that are liberally used in the book. It just seems like an impossible task, but time will tell, I suppose...
