The film adaptation of Ernest Cline’s book is scheduled to be released in March 2018
Jinrong Lei
Argonaut
Ernest Cline, author of the science fiction novel “Ready Player One,” will give the annual Washington State University Common Reading Invited Lecture at 7 p.m. Aug. 28 in Beasley Coliseum.
“Ready Player One” is scheduled for a movie release March 30, 2018, directed by Steven Spielberg, with the screenplay written by Cline himself.
As virtual reality has become a hot button in recent years, the exploration of how it may change our lives, languages, and cognition regarding both the real world and game world is attracting more and more attention.
Karen Weathermon, co-chair of the Washington State University Common Reading Program, said the members of the Washington State Common Reading Selection Committee chose “Ready Player One” as the common reading to connect incoming students with popular, interesting and familiar topics such as virtual reality online video games. She said she expects the upcoming movie to add to student interest in the book.
Beginning in the 2015-2016 school year, the WSU Common Reading Program provided a two-year common reading theme for students and professors to deepen their class discussions.
The first theme was “Social justice and Leadership,” and the book selected for last summer was “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson.
“Ready Player One” kicks off the second two-year theme, “Frontiers of Technology, Health, and Society.”
Beverly Stahl Makhani, a member of the Common Reading Selection Committee, said she looks forward to Cline’s talk because it is often difficult to negotiate the schedule with the authors.
Last year, the committee could not bring the author, Malala Yousafzai, to speak about the selected book, “I am Malala”. Instead, they invited “another young Pakistani activist for women’s education, Khalida Brohi, who spoke to many of the same themes of the book,” Weathermon said.
The Common Reading Program members encourage “Ready Player One” readers to come to join this talk, Weathermon said.
She said this is the first fiction book the committee has selected, and committee members challenge the professors to use it along with the usual class topics.
“Almost all students attend those events because they are required or (teachers) provide extra credit,” Weathermon said. “Yet about 70 percent end up reporting that they find the events interesting.”
Cline sold the film rights of his debut novel, Ready Player One, to Warner Bros Pictures in 2010. The film of the same name will be released March 30, 2018. Cline is a co-writer of the screenplay.
The book’s storyline is set in the future world of 2045, where numerous people seek escape from a declining world via massive multi-player online virtual reality role-playing games. Wade Watts is the teenage protagonist in Cline’s young adult novel, and the world Cline creates is shown through Watts’ eyes.
“Ready Player One” is not Cline’s only book being produced into a movie. Universal Pictures currently has the rights to produce Cline’s 2015 science fiction novel “Armada.” Like with “Ready Player One,” Cline wrote the film’s screenplay.
Tickets for Cline’s talk cost $10 for non-WSU students. Adults can buy tickets for $15 and WSU students can attend for free. Tickets can be found at Beasley’s ticket office and TicketsWest.
Jinrong Lei can be reached at [email protected]