READY PLAYER ONE Trailer

Ready Player One may not be everyone’s pop culture holy grail, but to ’80s and early ’90s kids, this will hit all your nostalgia buttons.

By taking the fantasy of living in fictional worlds and mixing in an absorbing puzzle, the novel Ready Player One became a smash critical and commercial success in 2011. The film rights were sold before the book was even released, with this cinema-loving (and cinematic) story feeling like a surefire hit, at least until you start thinking about the details. Who owns the rights to the multitude of properties referenced? How difficult would it be to recreate scenes from cult classics? And how do you make VR look cool and not like robotic miming?

The studio didn’t mess around with these questions and brought in living pop culture icon Steven Spielberg to direct the adaptation, and with fingers crossed that this will be more E.T. than BFG, hopes are high for the film version.

Spielberg will need the warm hearted touch featured in many of his classics (which, yes, are referenced repeatedly in the book) to make this film work, as underneath all the futuristic technology are the same fears and insecurities that have always plagued us. Those things never change, and neither does passion or our need for escapism, which is what makes Ready Player One lovable to those outside of its core demographic. If the film gets that stuff right, then it should be a very good time at the movies.

Ready Player One is directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, and Ben Mendelsohn. It will be released in the U.S. and the U.K. on March 30th, 2018. For international release dates, click here.

Do you think the movie will be as successful as the book? Let us know in the comments!