Warner Bros. Gets Steven Spielberg as Director for 'Ready Player One'

Warner Bros. Pictures announced Wednesday that Steven Spielberg, 68, is directing the film adaptation of Ernest Cline's award-winning debut science fiction and dystopian novel Ready Player One. Greg Silverman, the studio's President of Creative Development and Worldwide Production, said: "We are thrilled to welcome Steven back to Warner Bros. We had an historic series of collaborations in the 1980s and 1990s and have wanted to bring him back for years. As for Ready Player One, we have always felt that Steven was the dream director for this project."

The last picture Spielberg directed for the studio was A.I. Artificial Intelligence in 2001. He also previously directed Empire Of The Sun in 1987 and the The Color Purple in 1985 and produced Gremlins and Goonies during the mid-1980s.

Zak Penn is writing the screenplay based on Cline's book, a story about a youngster living in squalor in 2044's Oklahoma named Wade Watts, who taps into the globally networked virtual utopia of the OASIS to seek out a treasure left there by the game's late eccentric billionaire creator. As promised in the game, whoever succeeds in finding this easter egg will inherit the enigmatic old man's estate and vast fortune. Watts is pitted against powerful corporate foes and ruthless competitors who'll do anything in the Oasis, and in the real world, to reach the treasure first.

Warner Bros. bought the rights to bring to film Kline's book in June 2010. Donald De Line and Dan Farah, with Kristie Macosko Krieger, will produce the project. Jesse Ehrman and Racheline Benveniste will oversee for the studio.

Spielberg is currently wrapping up on his big-screen adaptation of the classic children's book, the "BFG" by Roald Dahl, a story about a big friendly giant who befriends a young orphaned girl, which will open in U.S. theaters on July 1, 2016. He also recently completed production on Bridge of Spies, a historical spy thriller set in the 1960s starring Tom Hanks, which will be released on October 16, 2015.