READY PLAYER ONE Author Ernest Cline's Video Game-Themed Book ARMADA is Being Adapted By Universal Pictures

Five years ago Universal Pictures picked up the rights to Ready Player One author Ernest Cline's book Armada. Now that Ready Player One is blowing up in theaters, the studio is finally ready to move forward with it. According to Deadline, they've hired Dan Mazeau to write the script.

This is another pop culture inspired story loaded with references from the 80s and 90s just like Ready Player One. This one has more of an Ender's Game kind of vibe to it as it deals with video games being used as a recruitment tool for a secret government organization called the Earth Defense Alliance, which has been in a secret war with an alien race for decades.

If you're not familiar with the book, here's a description for you:

Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science fiction books movies and video games he s spent his life-consuming Dreaming that one day some fantastic world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure. But hey there's nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don t get chosen to save the universe. And then he sees the flying saucer.

Even stranger, the alien ship he's staring at is straight out of the video game he plays every night a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders.

No, Zack hasn't lost his mind. As impossible as it seems what he's seeing is all too real. And his skills, as well as those of millions of gamers across the world, are going to be needed to save the earth from what s about to befall it. It's Zack s chance at last to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can't help thinking back to all those science fiction stories he grew up with and wondering. Doesn't something about this scenario seem a little familiar?

At once gleefully embracing and brilliantly subverting science fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline could Armada is a rollicking surprising thriller a classic coming of age adventure and an alien invasion tale like nothing you've ever read before one whose every page is infused with the pop culture savvy that has helped make Ready Player One a phenomenon.

This could really be a great film that is just as fun as Ready Player One if they actually get a talented and creative team to bring it to life. Hiring Mazeau to write the script probably isn't the best start as he is the same guy who wrote the terrible film Wrath of the Titans, but maybe he'll actually turn out a decent script. Cline wrote a script for the film after Universal acquired it years ago, but I guess, they didn't want to use that one. 

Ready Player One producer Dan Farah and Planet of the Apes producer Dylan Clark are also attached to the film and will help develop it. It will be interesting to see who they end up bringing on to direct the film, but it's safe to say that it won't be Steven Spielberg. Personally, I'd like to see Edgar Wright, write and direct the movie. It seems like a film that he would have a lot of fun with and I bet he would deliver an awesome movie.

Who would you like to see direct Armada?