The hit sci-fi novel Ready Player One is coming to the big screen soon thanks to Steven Spielberg, and we’ve gathered up all the news about the upcoming movie, including the cast, release date, and latest trailers.
Ready Player One started life as a hit sci-fi novel by Ernest Cline, one as obsessed with nostalgia about the past as it was looking forward to the future. Now it’s about to reach a whole new audience as it reaches the big screen courtesy of a new film adaptation from none other than Steven Spielberg.
With the release of the film fast approaching, we’ve gathered up all the info you need about the film’s cast, story, and release date, along with the latest trailers and posters. For info on other big releases, check out our guide to 2018’s best new films.
Ready Player One hits US cinemas on 29 March 2018, though those of us in the UK will have to wait a whole extra day (how will we ever manage?) as it arrives here on 30 March 2018 .
Ticket pre-sales haven’t started yet, but US readers should keep an eye on Fandango to find out when they do.
The film’s big star is Tye Sheridan, best known so far as the young Cyclops in the recent spate of X-Men movies. There’ll be plenty of familiar faces around him though, with appearances from Ben Mendelsohn, Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg, T. J. Miller and more.
That cast is no surprise when you think about who’s behind the camera: Steven Spielberg, making his first proper sci-fi film since War of the Worlds in 2005 (no, the aliens in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull don’t count).
As for the script, that’s a collaboration between Ernest Cline, the book’s original author, and Zak Penn, a prolific blockbuster writer who’s had a hand in the likes of The Avengers, X-Men 2, and, uh, Elektra. It would be fair to say his track record is mixed.
There have been two main posters for Ready Player One so far, and be warned: the first is a bit silly. It was savaged on social media for some of the worst leg-based photo manipulation we’ve ever seen, unless Tye Sheridan has just been hiding a serious deformity during his career so far:
A second official poster for the film was unveiled in February 2018, and this one takes a very different tone. Much like the film itself, it’s jam-packed with ’80s references, from a design evoking classic Star Wars posters through to nods to Back to the Future, The Iron Giant, and more.
So far there have been two proper trailers for Ready Player One. The first was the teaser trailer from San Diego Comic-Con 2017, which you can watch right here:
More recently, Warner Bros. released the first ‘official’ trailer for the film, which you can watch at the top of this page or right here:
In case you haven’t heard about the book, Ready Player One is set in a slightly decrepit future where just about everything is obsessed with the virtual reality world of the Oasis.
When the creator of the tech dies, he releases a video revealing that he’s hidden an Easter Egg inside the virtual world, and whoever finds it first will get his fortune. Naturally that’s where our hero, the young Wade Watts, fits in, as he joins the race to sort through the clues and find the prize – ahead of some slightly sinister corporate interests.
That’s all fun enough, but what made Ready Player One such a huge hit in the first place is the decision to have the hunt built around an obsession with ’80s nostalgia, so the book (and thus film) is packed with references to movies, comics, and videogames of the era, so expect to see an awful lot of familiar faces make appearances – imagine Wreck-It-Ralph’s videogame scenes on steroids.
