According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ben Mendelsohn (Exodus: Gods and Kings) is in early talks for Steven Spielberg’s new movie, Ready Player One.

Based on Ernest Cline’s best-selling YA novel set in a dystopian 2044, the story centers on a teenager (yet to be cast) who plugs into a virtual reality game called Oasis. Players sort through the details of the dead creator’s interests and nostalgic obsessions in an effort to solve riddles he has left behind. The teenager races against competitors willing to kill for the creator’s fortune promised to the winner of the game. Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) is set to play the teen’s love interest and competitor in the virtual world. Mendelsohn would play a villainous executive for an internet corporation that has ulterior designs for Oasis. The part has been reportedly offered to the actor, but the deal has not been officially signed.

Director Spielberg is producing the Warner Bros./Village Roadshow pic along with Donald De Line, Kristie Macosko Krieger and Dan Farah. Cline and Zak Penn will write the screenplay.

Australian-born Mendelsohn, fresh off season one of Netflix’s Bloodline series, which garnered him an Emmy nomination, is currently filming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, arguably the most hotly anticipated movie of 2016. This past year, he also starred with Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) in Mississippi Grind.

Ready Player One bows on December 15, 2017.