At the San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC), a film that has been in developmental hell since the book was first released in 2011 made its mark with a debut trailer. With heavyweight personnel behind it including Steven Spielberg as director and Ernest Cline adapting his novel into a screenplay, there is a sense that Ready Player One may become the film that its avid readers hope it can be. The question is, how does Spielberg tap into such devotion to a wealth of popular culture and make it into something that leaves people feeling impressed, as if they are watching something entirely new?
Ready Player One has always been something of a cult classic among science fiction readers, positing a world in which almost of its inhabitants spend their time in a virtual world created by Ogden Morrow and James Halliday known as ‘Oasis’. It is a world that is rife with popular culture references from Halo to Monty Python, from Dungeons and Dragons to Pac-Man. Most of its readers express a sense of nostalgia and affection for a book that lovingly treats their gaming and film heroes with such love and care.
To translate this into a film is a major obstacle, not least of which because of the licensing issues around assets that would be used in the film. Almost all of the popular culture references in the film will be licensed by parent companies and the film-makers will require permission from them to use those assets, most likely increasing the significant cost of the film and running the risk of failing to make a profit on a film that needs to be marketed as a ‘block-buster’.
The trailer seems to have succeeded in giving the impression that asset use should not be an issue. In fact, it is laced with popular culture references with everything from Deadpool to the Iron Giant, from Back to the Future and Halo.
Spielberg and Clyne has positioned this film perfectly to be released at a time where there is a greater interest in virtual reality than ever before. It stimulates interest in the future of the world and how virtual reality can transform people’s lives. More importantly, they are releasing at a time where many of the popular culture references remain fresh in the minds of those who are reading the book or watching the film. If they had released this film five or ten years later, the references may have been lost on some but, as they stand, they are so ingrained in modern culture that it is impossible to ignore them.
For people who have never read the book, this film could easily be (as described in the trailer) as the ‘Holy Grail of Popular Culture’ but for those who have read the book, it needs to be something different, a new take on a book that is warmly received by its readers. Should they succeed in the first, it will likely prove to be a moderate success. Should they succeed in the second, it will draw in a devoted and committed audience that will propel the film to new successes.
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