2017 is not the first year that Steven Spielberg has attended Comic-Con. But that doesn't mean his welcome was any less rapturous when he took the stage to help present Ready Player One as part of the Warner Bros. programme in Hall H. Potentially the other biggest element? The first trailer, which is now online.
Adapted from Ernie Cline's novel by Zak Penn, the story follows teenager Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), who likes to escape his dreary, dangerous real world by logging into Oasis, a globally networked virtual utopia where users lead idyllic alternate lives. When the game's eccentric, Steve Jobs-style billionaire creator dies, he offers up his fortune as the prize in an elaborate treasure hunt. Wade is pitted against powerful corporate foes and ruthless competitors who will do anything, in the Oasis and the real world, to reach the riches first. Olivia Cooke is Sam, a Canadian blogger who goes by the handle Art3mis in Oasis and ends up joining forces with Wade, while Ben Mendelsohn is nefarious corporate type Nolan Sorrento.
The first look at the film is an impressively overwhelming one, envisioning a virtual world where The Iron Giant can exist alongside DeLoreans. It certainly looks like a fun place to exist, filled with pop culture of all stripes.
Joining Spielberg on the panel were Cline and the cast – including TJ Miller, who plays quirky Oasis dweller I-R0k. The director jokes that when he heard the book had been turned into a script, he admitted he figured they'd need "a younger director!"
This was a shockingly short panel given the director involved, but one that was enlivened by Miller, who proclaimed, "it's more accurate than The Lawnmower Man!" Given the man overseeing things, you'd hope so...
Ready Player One is out on 30 March next year.