When people tell me, ‘Hey, have you read this book? It would make a great movie’, I tend to scoff. Why can’t a good book just be, you know, a good book? It doesn’t need a film adaptation to merit its existence. And yet – after finishing Ernie Cline’s fun Ready Player One, of course, my first thought was – ‘Hey, this could make a great film.’ Sometimes I hate myself.
There’s just something about Ready Player One’s utopia-within-a-dystopia that feels filmic. Perhaps it’s all the 80’s film references and the nostalgia-dripping descriptions that scream, ‘Put me on the big screen.’ Regardless – I’m in the bag for a Ready Player One film-adaptation. Add in Steven Spielberg – and, well, can’t they just screen this movie today? Please?
They did not.
But Steven Spielberg, writers Ernie Cline & Zak Penn, and the entire cast (Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, and T.J. Miller) did premiere exclusive new footage at their Hall H Panel. Below are the bullet point highlights.
- A coin moves into a video game slot scored to the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack – announcing Ready Player One.
- Ernie Cline - “I grew up watching [Spielberg] movies. They’re woven into my fabric of being.” So it’s been amazing to watch Spielberg adapt the novel into the film.
- Spielberg describes the future of Ready Player One as one that feels more and more likely.
- Spielberg then previews a trailer – watch it here. It looks AMAZING!
- Per Ernest Cline – Ready Player One’s going to open people up to virtual reality. It’s going to bring virtual reality into the mainstream and open people’s minds to it.
- Per TJ Miller, Ready Player One’s virtual reality is a little more “real than Lawnmower Man.”
- Per Spielberg – he was drawn to the world of the novel – this dystopian world and how it intersects with virtual reality, to the point where people can’t tell the difference.
- Per Spielberg – The Iron Giant plays a major role in the film.
Ready Player One opens in theaters everywhere March 30th, 2018.
For all of our SDCC coverage, click here.
