Not content with conquering both of the big genre universes featuring "star" in the title, it looks like Simon Pegg will once more be working with Steven Spielberg, as the director has him in talks for Ready Player One.
Yes, this would mark the fourth time (after Band Of Brothers, The Adventures Of Tintin and Spielberg's voice cameo in Paul that their paths have crossed, and Ready Player One feels like the ideal project to find Pegg in.
The film, which adapts Ernie Cline's pop culture-stuffed bestseller, follows teenager Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), who likes to escape his dreary, dangerous real world by logging into Oasis, a globally networked virtual utopia where users lead idyllic alternate lives. When the game's eccentric, Steve Jobs-style billionaire creator James Halliday dies, he offers up his fortune as the prize in an elaborate treasure hunt of easter eggs. Wade is pitted against powerful corporate foes and ruthless competitors who will do anything, in the Oasis (where his avatar is known as Parzival) and the real world, to reach the riches first.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pegg will be Ogden Morrow, sort of the Steve Wozniak to Halliday's Jobs, who co-created the Oasis system with him. The pair, who were once very close, parted ways after disagreements about the software's future direction, their feelings brought to the boil after they both fell in love with the same woman.
He'll join a cast that also includes Olivia Cooke as Sam, a Canadian blogger who goes by the handle Art3mis and Ben Mendelsohn as the story's major antagonist, corporate schemer Nolan Sorrento.
Spielberg is gearing up to kick off shooting in June. Pegg, last seen under layers of latex in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has co-written and returns as Scotty in Star Trek Beyond, out here on July 22.