Simon Pegg is the latest addition to the cast of Steven Spielberg‘s Ready Player One, the film adaptation of Ernest Cline‘s novel of the same name.

Pegg joins Tye Sheridan (X-Men Apocalypse), Ben Mendelsohn (Bloodlines), and Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl). More on the story below.

THR says Pegg is in negotiations to play Orgen Morrow, the co-creator of Oasis – the digital wasteland where players search for Easter Eggs, hidden by the game’s founder, that could lead to a massive fortune. Sheridan plays Wade Watts, a player who happens to find one of these Easter Eggs, which puts a target on his back and has other players looking to take it from him, and Sorrento (Mendelsohn), who is described as a high-ranking official of an Internet corporation that hopes to take over and monetize the OASIS. Cooke is set to play Art3mis, the female lead.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Pegg has worked with Spielberg. He and fellow starring partner Nick Frost was the voice of Thomson and Thompson, a pair of bumbling detectives in The Adventures Of Tintin.

Warner Bros. recently rescheduled Ready Player One from its December 2016 release to March 30, 2018, in order to get away from A Star Wars Story: Rogue One. The film will begin lensing in June.

Here’s how the novel is described on Amazon:

In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade’s devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world’s digital confines””puzzles that are based on their creator’s obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.

But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade’s going to survive, he’ll have to win””and confront the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.

[Source: THR]