If there’s one up and comer in Hollywood to keep an eye on, it’s Tye Sheridan. After impressing in films like Mud and The Tree of Life, among others, the actor managed to snag a role in X-Men: Apocalypse as young Cyclops. Now, he’s just landed another big part, in Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One.
The adaptation of Ernest Cline’s novel has been simmering in development for a while now, and has already grabbed Olivia Cooke for the female lead and Ben Mendelsohn for the villain. As for Sheridan, he’s come on board to play the male lead, Wade Watts.
For those unfamiliar with the source material, Watts is the focus of the story, as he’s the first person to find the “first of the three keys left behind by OASIS creator James Halliday. OASIS is a highly valuable, online virtual reality space, and after Halliday’s death, a worldwide Easter Egg hunt ensues to find a hidden treasure that gives the discoverer control over OASIS—which, in this dystopian future, means control over the world.”
Though Ready Player One was originally supposed to be with us next Christmas, Warner Bros. had to delay it to March of 2018 in order to move out of the way of a little film known as Star Wars: Episode VIII.
So yeah, it’s still a long ways away, but with a solid cast now in place, things should start to materialize on Spielberg’s upcoming blockbuster. And given the talent involved here, we can’t wait to see how the film turns out.
