Jason Bateman’s Aggregate Films to adapt The Impossible Fortress for Netflix

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

While fans of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One are chomping at the bit for proper news of a sequel to the author's nostalgic virtual action-adventure, Netflix has announced that they've optioned the rights to Jason Rekulak's YA novel, The Impossible Fortress, a story that celebrates the early-days of computer programming, 1980s pop culture as well as the internet's days of yore, when dial-up was your keys to a bold new kingdom of games, chat rooms, and pixelated dick pics.

For more of an idea as to what The Impossible Kingdom is all about, check out this brief synopsis courtesy of Goodreads:

A dazzling debut novel—at once a charming romance and a moving coming-of-age story—about what happens when a fourteen-year old boy pretends to seduce a girl to steal a copy of Playboy but then discovers she is his computer-loving soulmate.

Billy Marvin’s first love was a computer. Then he met Mary Zelinsky.

Do you remember your first love?

The Impossible Fortress begins with a magazine…The year is 1987 and Playboy has just published scandalous photographs of Vanna White, from the popular TV game show Wheel of Fortune. For three teenage boys—Billy, Alf, and Clark—who are desperately uneducated in the ways of women, the magazine is somewhat of a Holy Grail: priceless beyond measure and impossible to attain. So, they hatch a plan to steal it.

For the full synopsis, please click here.

On board to produce the book-to-film adaptation for Netflix is Jason Bateman's Aggregate Films and GoldDay, with Rekulak adapting his own novel for the project. Overseeing the project for Netflix is Ori Marmur and Ivanna Martinez, with Bateman, Michael Costigan and Adam Wagner repping Aggregate Films and Jonathan Goldstein and John Daley developing on behalf of GoldDay.

As an old school internet nerd, I must admit that I'm intrigued by this project. I can still recall the dial-up days of yore when irritating noises and agonizing connection speeds were all a part of the magic of the world wide web. Oh, and don't even get me started on memories of AOL chat rooms. Those Instant Messages got real steamy real quick when you were a nerd looking to connect with another mysterious user on the other end of a screen. In fact, I met one of my coolest girlfriends thanks to the power of AOL. We're still friends to this day, though we'd abandoned the use of chat rooms many moons ago. Here's hoping that THE IMPOSSIBLE KINGDOM scratches that READY PLAYER ONE itch for those awaiting its inevitable sequel.