ⓒCourtesy of Warner Brothers

Zak Penn, the screenwriter who penned Steven Spielberg‘s 2018 film “Ready Player One,” is said to be working on the sequel titled “Ready Player Two,” as reported by The Direct.

“Ready Player One“ was released in theaters on March 29, 2018, transporting audiences into a dystopian future where the virtual OASIS program offered an escape from a bleak real world.

Following Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) and his friends, the story explored their quest to seize control of the digital utopia created by the late James Halliday (Mark Rylance). The climax of Ready Player One saw Wade sharing the OASIS ownership with his friends and periodically shutting it down to encourage real-life interactions.

In December 2020, amid the ongoing pandemic, Ready Player One author Ernest Cline (via Pillot Productions) gave an early, promising update about a Ready Player Two adaptation, Ernest Cline: “Conversations have begun with Warner Bros. about possibly making a movie based on this book. But Hollywood’s kind of in stasis right now, so we’re all kind of living in uncertainty at this point in the film industry. But yeah, I think there’s a chance. 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. So this time around, I’m a lot more optimistic about it becoming a movie someday, but we will have to wait and see.”

Spielberg, in 2024, stated he would produce rather than direct it. Penn spoke with the media on the red carpet about “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe,” confirming his role and stating, “I am working on the script.”

The original film grossed $608 million worldwide on a $175 million budget.