The inevitable has happened: A Ready Player Two movie is in the works. The sequel novel recently arrive nine years after Ernest Cline‘s original pop culture-obsessed sci-fi novel Ready Player One, but appears to be fast-tracked to the screen after Steven Spielberg‘s adaptation of the book became a box office hit in 2018.

If nostalgia is currency in Hollywood, Cline’s Ready Player One series is filthy with it. Which is why a feature adaptation of Ready Player Two is already on its way, just a month after the novel was published. Author Ernest Cline revealed during a chat with Inverse that his follow-up novel Ready Player Two is now in the early stages of development of a feature adaptation at Warner Bros.

“It’s in the early stages right now, especially since Hollywood is in limbo right now. But I can tell from the experience of making the first movie that everybody had a lot of fun.”

Cline doesn’t mention who will be writing the script or directing the Ready Player Two movie, or whether original cast members Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, Mark Rylance, Letitia Wright, and Simon Pegg will be returning. But it’s unlikely that Ready Player One director Steven Spielberg would be back at the helm. We can probably assume that Spielberg will at least executive produce and oversee the direction of the film like he’s had with many other franchises he’s handed off to other filmmakers, like Jurassic Park, and recently, Indiana Jones.

But with the film raking in $582.8 million globally on a $175 million budget, it’s no surprise that Warner Bros. wants a sequel, and now they conveniently have source material to adapt. And what does that source material cover? Well, like we all expect, much of the same, including an Easter egg hunt and plenty more pop culture references, per the book synopsis:

Days after OASIS founder James Halliday’s contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything. Hidden within Halliday’s vaults, waiting for his heir to find lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the OASIS a thousand times more wondrous – and addictive – than even Wade dreamed possible.

With it comes a new riddle and a new quest: a last easter egg from Halliday hinting at a mysterious prize. And an unexpected impossible powerful and dangerous new rival awaits – one who will kill millions to get what he wants. Wade’s life and the future of the OASIS are again at stake, but this time, the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance. Lovingly nostalgic and wildly original as only Ernest Cline could conceive it, Ready Player Two takes us on another imaginative, fun, action-packed adventure through his beloved virtual universe and jolts us thrillingly into the future once again.

Ready Player Two is available for purchase now.

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