ZAK PENN

Co-screenwriter on Ready Player One

Did adapting the novel feel like playing around in a pop culture toy box?

there’s this kind of unlimited imagination quality to the book that allows you to run wild, though with everything needing to be licensed, all of your wonderful ideas turn out to require a bunch of lawyers. But it’s definitely helpful having Spielberg when you’re in that situation, because he could just make a phone call and you knew you were going to get it.

The Shining plays a big role in the movie. How did that come about?

I’d always wanted to do something closer to the original idea of Last Action

Hero, my first script, which was getting to go into a movie and affecting it. the first movie I wrote into my first draft we didn’t get the rights to, so Steven challenged ernie (Cline) and I to think of another iconic movie. Neither of us thought he would say yes to The Shining!

Spielberg vetoed using his own back catalogue in the movie. Did that make life difficult?

It’s hard to reconstruct an ’80s trivia scavenger hunt from the best movies without Steven’s imprint, but I think it was the right move. I think if you had seen references to his movies it would have taken you out of the moment. Richard Edwards