In casting news scientifically engineered to make people say, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” beloved nerd celebrity Simon Pegg has been cast in Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of semi-beloved nerd-bait novel Ready Player One. Pegg will play reclusive good guy and tech wiz Ogden “Og” Morrow, the Steve Wozniak to James Halliday, the enigmatic Steve Jobs-like figure who sets the novel’s high-stakes pop-culture scavenger hunt in motion.
The film will star future X-Man Tye Sheridan as teenager Wade Watts, a virtual treasure hunter in the sort of dystopian world where “knowing a lot about WarGames” is a marketable skill. While searching through various online recreations of ’80s nerd references for Halliday’s multi-billion dollar legacy, Watts eventually catches Og’s attention, even as the villainous IOI (represented by corporate flunky Ben Mendelsohn) seeks him for its own sinister purposes.
The film also stars Olivia Cooke, and whichever appropriately referential older actor—Jeff Bridges would be our vote, but we’d take Matthew Broderick, too—Spielberg eventually finds to play Halliday himself if he appears. Ready Player One is set for a March 2018 release.