8 Years Later, Ready Player One Is Finally Getting A Movie Sequel
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Steven Spielberg may have made a grand return to science fiction with Disclosure Day, but we can’t forget his previous addition to the sci-fi canon: Ready Player One, the multiversal, pop-culture-stuffed epic starring Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke based on Ernest Cline’s book of the same name. The result was the epitome of nostalgia-bait, and while it was an interesting world and a box-office success, it hasn’t been remembered in the most favorable terms.
But almost a decade later, Ready Player One is getting a sequel, aptly titled Ready Player Two, based on the book sequel by Cline of the same name, published in 2020. But could the film version recreate the magic of the original? Or, like the first film, will it generate even more debate?
Zak Penn and Ernest Cline co-wrote Ready Player One, but only Penn is confirmed for the sequel.
The Direct recently asked Zak Penn, screenwriter and showrunner of the new HBO series Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, for an update on Ready Player Two, and Penn confirmed that he is working on it. Penn wrote the original with Cline, but there’s no indication that he’s returning for the sequel.
Calling this project long-awaited would be an understatement. The first rumblings of a Ready Player Two began all the way back in 2020, when author Ernest Cline told Inverse it was in the works. “It’s in the early stages right now,” he said at the time, “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.”
In another interview with Pillot Productions from around the same time, he detailed how he felt like even Ready Player One happening was improbable. “The first book, I never in a million years imagined it could be a movie, because all the licensing and stuff that would be required, but by some miracle, that book found its way to the one film director who could get the rights to pretty much anything that we could think of,” he said. “So this time around, I'm a lot more optimistic about it becoming a movie someday, but we will have to wait and see.”
Thanks to Cline’s novel Ready Player Two, we know more or less what to expect from this sequel.
Cline seems to suggest that Ready Player One only happened because of Spielberg’s involvement, which begs the question: will Spielberg return for round two? Earlier this year, he revealed his next project after Disclosure Day would be a Western, so if he is on board for the sequel, it will have to wait for his next availability.
It’s possible that the movie could continue without Spielberg, however. Spielberg has only directed four sequels in his entire career, three Indiana Jones movies and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and both of those franchises have since moved on to other directors. Other Spielberg movies, like Jaws 2 and its subsequent sequels, had no Spielberg involvement whatsoever. So there is precedent for his movies continuing on without him, but it would mean a lot of work.
But it’s been eight years now, and there’s no sign of Ready Player Two entering production, so there’s time for this project to fully develop and get all those clearances and licenses, and maybe even time for Spielberg to return behind the camera. For now, though, we know at the very least that it’s still in progress.
