Ernest Cline
Encyclopedia
Spoken word
From 1997-2001, Cline performed his original work at the Austin Poetry SlamAustin Poetry Slam
The Austin Poetry Slam is one of the longest running poetry venues in Texas. Founded in 1994 by Wammo of the Asylum Street Spankers and helmed for 15 years by former Poetry Slam, Inc. president, Mike Henry, Austin Slam is renowned for memorable and often raucous performances by many of the best...
venues. He was the Austin Poetry Slam
Austin Poetry Slam
The Austin Poetry Slam is one of the longest running poetry venues in Texas. Founded in 1994 by Wammo of the Asylum Street Spankers and helmed for 15 years by former Poetry Slam, Inc. president, Mike Henry, Austin Slam is renowned for memorable and often raucous performances by many of the best...
Champ in 1998 and 2001, and competed on the Austin Poetry Slam Teams at the 1998 Austin National Poetry Slam
National Poetry Slam
The National Poetry Slam is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and France participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year and takes place in a different US city....
and the 2001 Seattle National Poetry Slam
National Poetry Slam
The National Poetry Slam is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and France participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year and takes place in a different US city....
. His most popular spoken word pieces include: "Dance, Monkeys, Dance", "Nerd Porn Auteur" and "When I Was a Kid." Paulo Ang, a UCSD student, created a popular flash cartoon out of Ernie's track "Dance Monkeys Dance." Cline himself subsequently reworked "Dance Monkeys Dance" into a faux educational filmstrip, which became a popular viral video that has now been translated into 29 different languages.
In 2001, Cline self-published a chapbook collection of his spoken word writing, The Importance of Being Ernest and released an album, The Geek Wants Out, both sold through his website.
Screenwriting
In 1996, Cline wrote a sequel (Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League) to W. D. RichterW. D. Richter
W. D. Richter is a screenwriter and has occasionally directed and produced. He is best known for adapting Invasion of the Body Snatchers , directing The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, and helping write Big Trouble in Little China.- Biography:Richter graduated from...
's 1984 film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!, often shortened to Buckaroo Banzai, is an American spoof science fiction film that was released in 1984. It was directed and produced by W. D. Richter, and concerns the efforts of the multi-talented Dr...
and made it available on the Internet.
In 1998, Cline's screenplay, Fanboys
Fanboys
A fanboy is a person considered to belong to one or more fandoms to a point of obsession.Fanboy or fanboys may also refer to:* Fanboys , a 2009 American comedy film...
, generated local interest in Austin, TX, including mention on Harry Knowles
Harry Knowles
Harry Knowles is known for his website called Ain't It Cool News. Knowles is a member of the Austin Film Critics Association.-Biography:...
' website Ain't It Cool News. In late 2005, the Weinstein Company purchased Ernest Cline's script for Fanboys film, casting Sam Huntington
Sam Huntington
Sam Huntington is an American actor, best known for his role as Mimi-Siku in the 1990s film "Jungle 2 Jungle" and as Jimmy Olsen in "Superman Returns". He now stars in the TV series Being Human.- Personal life :...
, Chris Marquette, Dan Fogler
Dan Fogler
Daniel Kevin "Dan" Fogler is an American actor, playwright, and filmmaker.-Personal life:Fogler was born in Brooklyn, New York, the second child of Shari, an English teacher, and Richard Fogler, a surgeon. Fogler is Jewish...
, Jay Baruchel
Jay Baruchel
Jonathan Adam Saunders "Jay" Baruchel is a Canadian actor. He has had a successful career in comedy films, and has appeared in supporting roles in such box office successes as Million Dollar Baby, Knocked Up and Tropic Thunder, as well as starring in films like She's Out of My League, The Trotsky,...
and Kristen Bell
Kristen Bell
Kristen Anne Bell is an American actress. Although her first film role was an uncredited appearance in Polish Wedding, Bell previously acted in stage and musical productions. In 2001, she made her Broadway debut as Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer...
as the five main characters. At the 2008 San Diego ComiCon, Fanboys producer Kevin Spacey announced the release date of September 19, 2008. However, The Weinstein Company changed the release date to November 26, 2008. Fanboys was released on February 6, 2009.
Also in the summer of 2008, Lakeshore Entertainment
Lakeshore Entertainment
Lakeshore Entertainment Group is an American independent film production company founded in 1994 by Tom Rosenberg and Ted Tannebaum . Lakeshore Entertainment is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California...
announced that they would be producing Cline's screenplay, Thundercade. Thundercade follows the story of a video game junkie in his mid-30's who learns that a young gamer has beaten a record he set when he was a teenager, who then travels with his friends to the world's largest gaming championship, Thundercade, to restore his former glory.
Fiction
In June 2010 Cline sold his first novel Ready Player OneReady Player One
Ready Player One is a science fiction novel by Ernest Cline. The book was published by Random House on August 16, 2011. The audiobook is narrated by Wil Wheaton.Warner Bros. bought the rights to the film in June 2010....
in a bidding war to the Crown Publishing Group
Crown Publishing Group
-External links:*...
(a division of Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
). The film rights to the novel were sold the following day to Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
with Cline attached to write the screenplay.
Personal life
Like the hero of Ready Player One, Ernest Cline spent much of his young adulthood working a series of low-paying tech support jobs that allowed him to surf the Internet while on the clock and research his many pop-culture obsessions.Cline, a huge fan of the Back to the Future
Back to the Future
Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of...
film series, owns a 1982 DeLorean DMC-12 sports car that has been modified to look like the time-travelling vehicle from the films.
Cline’s all-time favorite video game is Black Tiger
Black Tiger (arcade game)
Black Tiger, known in Japan as , is a 1987 action game released for the arcades by Capcom.- Description :A barbarian hero jumps and fights his way through a variety of colourful, enemy-packed levels in this spiritual successor to the Capcom classic Ghosts 'n Goblins...
, which figures prominently into the plot of Ready Player One.