AceShowbiz -

Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One" has finally found its leading man. According to a new Deadline report, Tye Sheridan has been hired to play the main protagonist in the movie, which is currently being developed by Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow.

The actor will portray Wade Watts, a poor orphan from the "stacks" surrounding metropolitan Oklahoma who joins a virtual world called OASIS. The film has also cast Olivia Cooke and Ben Mendelsohn as the female lead Art3mis and the villainous Nolan Sorrento respectively.

"Ready Player One", adapted from Ernest Cline's book of the same name, will follow Wade/Parzival as he competes against gamers from around the world for a big prize offered by the OASIS creator when he dies. In addition to directing, Spielberg will produce alongside Donald De Line, Dan Farah and Kristie Macosko Krieger.

Last month, Warner Bros. announced that they'd pushed back the film's release to 2018. The delay means it gets to avoid "Star Wars Episode VIII" that's set to hit U.S. theaters in December 2017.

Sheridan will next be seen in Bryan Singer's much-anticipated "X-Men: Apocalypse", in which he stars as the young Scott Summers a.k.a. Cyclops.