Although Spielberg’s name will most certainly guarantee a grand audience for the film adaptation, the movie can not compare to the numbers tallied in the seventh Star Wars movie.
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Warner Bros. announced a slate of new release dates Tuesday, including a delay for Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One.
Given that Ready Player One is still simmering in pre-production, news of delay shouldn’t prove too damaging for the studio’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s eponymous novel.
For a movie the size of Ready Player One, a decent box office showing wont be enough for the studio.
Warner Bros. has, meanwhile, scheduled an unspecified “event” release for March 2, 2018, a New Line tentpole for April 20, 2018, and shifted the release of their untitled DC Comics film (likely The Flash) up by a single week, debuting it March 16, 2017. That film and “Ready Player One” will both play in IMAX.
The Warner Bros. release may have blinked, but insiders insist its not running scared. It’s a shame, however, that the movie was moved to 2018 rather than earlier in 2017, not only because now we have to wait longer to see it, but because the first few months of the year are notorious dumping grounds for films that are foregoing either summer blockbuster status or awards consideration.
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Set in the near future, Ready Player One follows outcast teenager Wade Watts, who escapes from his bleak surroundings by logging in to the OASIS, a globally networked virtual utopia where users can lead idyllic alternate lives. Perhaps Spielberg can even find space to give a nod to the buried landfill of E.T.
