Ready Player One

I’m probably not going to rock your world if I tell you that Hollywood enjoys catering to the nostalgia of audiences. Some of the most successful shows and movies from the last few years - including Stranger Things and Ghostbusters - have succeeded specifically because they were able to recreate things that we loved when we were children. What made Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One such a worldwide phenomenon wasn’t just the author’s grasp of eighties and nineties popular culture, but the way he wove that into the book’s original narrative. His character’s obsession with the past was both his greatest strength and his biggest weakness.

Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the beloved sci-fi novel hits theaters next spring, but your first look is here now.

John Williams is one of Steven Spielberg’s most frequent collaborators, and earlier this year he was set to score both of the director’s upcoming movies: Pentagon Papers drama The Papers and pop culture-infused sci-fi Ready Player One. But because both of these movies are being put together at about the same time (Ready Player One’s production began last year, and The Papers was filmed this spring in a matter of weeks for a December release) Williams has had to give up scoring duties on the latter in favor of the former.

The San Diego Comic Con schedules have been rolling out all week, and Warner Bros. has a bunch of heavy hitters this year to possibly keep Marvel and Disney from stealing too much of the spotlight. Warners takes over Hall H on Saturday, July 22 at 11:30 AM, starting with a showcase of all their exciting upcoming releases, hosted by master of ceremonies Chris Hardwick.

Ready Player One could best be described as absolutely maddening to adapt into a movie. First of all, in Ernest Cline’s book you have two separate worlds to deal with: the dystopian slum world America has devolved into, and then the virtual world inside the OASIS that people use to escape their reality. The OASIS is peppered with ’80s and ’90s pop culture references — they become integral to the plot — so it makes sense that Steven Spielberg, one of the people who essentially created the late 20th century pop culture landscape, would be a good choice to direct it.

Ready Player One, Ernest Cline’s virtual reality dystopia, is getting the film adaptation treatment from Steven Spielberg, and he’s currently shooting it in London. The book takes place in the near future of 2044, and tells of an energy crisis that has forced most people to turn to OASIS, a VR game complete with chunky goggles, as a form of escape from their harsh reality.

Ready Player One was always meant to be a movie. With a plot that centers on millenial nostalgia for early ’90s video games, movies, and television shows, and a thoroughly likable group of characters, Ready Player One has been on many science-fiction fans’ most anticipated movie list since the movie rights were optioned. And on Friday, screenwriter Zak Penn posted on Twitter that production on the Steven Spielberg-led film adaptation had finally begun.

T.J. Miller has such an incredible natural comedic gift that his mere presence alone almost guarantees that you’re going to laugh in less than 10 seconds. And now he’s bringing that talent to Ready Player One, the upcoming adaptation of Ernest Cline’s nostalgia-heavy sci-fi novel. But don’t think Miller’s going all serious on us now that he’s starring in a Steven Spielberg movie.

Earlier this week, Steven Spielberg announced an upcoming project, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, which would star recent Oscar-winner Mark Rylance. Rylance won his Oscar for Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, and stars in Spielberg’s upcoming The BFG...

It’s almost amazing to think that at this point Simon Pegg hasn’t starred in a Steven Spielberg film, but that’s all about to change. Pegg is currently in talks to join the cast of Spielberg’s Ready Player One, which already has Tye Sheridan (X-Men: Apocalypse), Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and Ben Mendelsohn (Star Wars: Rogue One) set to star...