Simon Pegg is in negotiations to join the cast of Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi film Ready Player One, The Hollywood Reporter reveals.
Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow are behind the movie, which adapts the best-selling sci-fi novel by Ernest Cline and is in the midst of casting as it heads towards a June start.
Tye Sheridan leads a cast that includes Olivia Cooke and Ben Mendelsohn in the story set in a virtual world called Oasis, in which a teenager (Sheridan) finds himself competing in a treasure hunt against ruthless foes after the game's founder dies and offers his fortune as the grand prize.
Pegg will play Orgen Morrow, the co-creator of Oasis.
Ready Player One is being produced by Spielberg via his Amblin Partners banner, along with Donald De Line, Kristie Macosko Krieger and Dan Farah.
Pegg last co-starred in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation and next reprises his role of Starfleet engineer Scotty in Star Trek Beyond, which he also co-wrote. Star Trek opens July 22.
