Ready Player One Movie Adaptation Directed by Nolan?
Well, it appears that Christopher Nolan has officially been offered the Director role for the movie version of the book Ready Player One. You can read more about it on the Tracking Board if you are interested in what few details they have released.
First, if you are the last person on earth to read the book Ready Player One just stop reading this post and turn around and get the book pronto. Seeing as though everyone else on the planet but you have already read it, I’m sure there will be like a zillion copies used and available for 32 cents on Amazon. So, move along and get to reading. If you still need more convincing other than the whole, “EVERYONE IS DOING IT” brilliance… then I suppose I can give you a quick precis.
Ready Player One is set in the near future. Its a dystopian world where everyone spends most of their time online in a virtual world not too unlike World of Warcraft or Destiny maybe. Actually, it is a real world, so maybe its more like the Sims now that I think about it. Regardless, most humans hide from reality and live most of their “real lives” online and plugged in. It is in this world that the creator of the online game that everyone plays has died and left easter eggs to be found. The first one to find all three and solves each one will take over the entire corporation.
Here’s where Ready Player One gets interesting though. Even though the world is set in the future – all of the easter eggs and all of the challenges are based on 80’s pop culture and games. So the entirety of the book is one big ode to Pac-Man, Wargames, and the Atari! Here’s what I wrote about it when I first alerted you to its greatness.
All children of the 90’s and the new millennium get a pass on this particular book review. Don’t even bother – just move along, nothing to see here. But you kids who grew up with Atari? Arcade games and QUARTERS? Remember those? Molly Ringwald? Oh baby have we got a book for you. This is a post apocalyptic distopyian massively multi-player game centered book from the future. What’s that got to do with the eighties? EVERYTHING. Read it and relive your childhood. Insta-brilliance Donkey Kong style.
And so we follow a child prodigy geek who is the least likely to solve these Easter Eggs. And yet, he becomes our hero throughout the book. The fun part about this book is that it takes place in both the real world and also the virtual simultaneously. As the online trials escalate, so too do the real world troubles.
Granted, on the face of it, it sounds like a good book for Nolan to helm. But it has a layer of levity that just doesn’t exactly match our serious director. I mean, maybe he could do humor. But I’ll believe it when I see it. Personally? I think Chris passes on the project. I’m betting he’s got so many other big dollar asks, or his own ideas to pen and shoot that he won’t go near this project with a ten foot pole. But hey, I’m just telling you what I’m hearing. It has a very Inception like quality to it. Personally I think Nolan ought to direct Reamde instead. Reamde and Ready Player One are almost identical twins. But where RPO is funny, Reamde is serious. And where RPO is nerdy, Reamde is 007 and Inception rolled up into one. But who knows. We shall see.
What do you think Nolan ought to direct next now that all the Inception parties are done and shuttered?