Ready Player One

Ready Player One is a 2018 American science fiction action film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Ernest Cline and Zak Penn. Based on Cline's 2011 novel Ready Player One, it stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg and Mark Rylance. The film is set in 2045, where much of humanity uses the OASIS, a virtual reality simulation, to escape the real world. Teenage orphan Wade Watts finds clues to a contest that promises ownership of the OASIS to the winner, and he and his allies try to complete it before an evil corporation can do so.

Development of the film first began in mid-2010 when Warner Bros. acquired the rights to the book. In July 2015, Spielberg signed on to direct and produce the film, with casting commencing in September 2015. Filming began in England in June 2016 and was completed in September that year. The visual effects were handled by Industrial Light & Magic, Digital Domain and Territory Studio, with some pre-visualization work done by The Third Floor, Inc.. As with the novel, many popular culture references appear throughout the film, including those to the Back to the Future franchise, The Iron Giant, The Shining, King Kong, and the Godzilla franchise.