Falling somewhere outside easy categorization was Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, based on the hit novel by Ernest Cline. For one, those previous movies are almost all members of the fantasy genre, while Ready Player One is sci-fi and, two, while the novel is frequently (and not unfairly) lumped in with YA, it’s retro vibe and references appeal even more to adults than teens. The same could be said of the film, which turns eight years old today.
How Did Ready Player One Do & How Does Its Quality Compare to the Rest of the YA Boom?
image courtesy of warner bros. pictures
Of the aforementioned long list of YA adaptations, Ready Player One falls below the Harry Potter franchise and the first two Hunger Games movies, but above the rest. It’s a fast-paced epic of a world-builder that only really suffers in terms of crafting a memorable roster of supporting characters. T.J. Miller’s work as i-R0k is also a bit on the irritating side.
It’s fun watching Spielberg play in a world that is largely populated by iconic figures of 1980s movies and television. Some of them he even had a hand in bringing to life, such as Back to the Future (there are quite a few references to that trilogy), Gremlins, and the live action Transformers movies.
There are also a number of other pop culture references, especially in the final battle. For instance, Ryu, Chun-Li, and a few other characters from the Street Fighter franchise pop up, as do the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, an orc from World of Warcraft, the Wolf-Man, RoboCop, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, He-Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, a squad of SPARTAN-IIs from Halo, Flash, Deadshot, Joker, Harley Quinn, Chucky, and the Iron Giant. There’s even the Overlook Hotel from The Shining, which hosts one of the film’s bigger and more memorable set pieces.
There are also a number of soon to be big stars who make cameo appearances or have small roles here. Lulu Wilson popped up, in between starring in Annabelle: Creation and her impressive work in the lead role of Becky. You also get Scream 7‘s Mckenna Grace, Letitia Wright, who had just started playing the MCU’s Shuri in the previous month’s Black Panther, future Galactus portrayer Ralph Ineson, and Hanna John-Kamen, who played Ghost in Ant-Man and the Wasp a few months after this movie’s debut.
Now, while Ready Player One feels like the most expansive single YA movie, that came at a cost. The movie cost somewhere between $155 million and $175 million, more than any Hunger Games movie besides Mockingjay – Part 2 ($160 million) and in line with the last few Potter movies. Outside those, the budgets were typically kept in a $50 million to $60 million range.
But the investment paid off. Not quite to a Twilight or Harry Potter degree, but well, nonetheless. All in all, it made just under $608 million, which is enough to make a sequel a worthwhile endeavor. And one is in development, but it raises a big question mark. Cline’s Ready Player Two came out in 2020, nine years after the first book and two years after the movie. However, fans and critics alike panned it. It’s reputation didn’t hold a candle to that of the first book. If they are going to make a Ready Player Two movie, just about every fan is hoping it strays far from the source material. The question is, has that book’s poor reputation sullied the chances of a film sequel?
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