Ben Mendelsohn rumoured to Play Villain in Spielberg’s Ready Player One

• Nicholas Olsen


• 7 Jan 2016

Bloodline‘s Ben Mendelsohn may be locked to play the villain in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Sci-Fi film, Ready Player One.

Sources told THR that Mendelsohn — who is starring in this year’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ― is in talks to play the antagonist, Nolan Sorrento, an elite official who works for Innovative Online Industries, a world-wide corporation that plans to take over and monetize OASIS (the thousand-world virtual universe in which the story is set).

Wade Owen Watts, the protagonist of Earnest Cline’s novel, has not yet been cast for Spielberg’s adaptation. Olivia Cooke has been cast as Sam “Art3mis” Cook, Watt’s romantic cyber interest and rival.

Ready Player One is scheduled to release on December 15, 2017.