How did Spielberg come to direct Ready Player One?
It was relatively recently announced that Steven Spielberg will be directing the movie Ready Player One, based off of the book by the same name. Looking through his history of films he has directed, this story stands out as radically different, at least to me, compared to anything else he has done.
How has it come to be that Steven Spielberg is directing this movie?
Best Answer
This is a speculative answer as I could not find any source pointing out to "what really excited Spielberg to do this project/movie". I am answering anyways just for that part of OP's question which suggests that it is an odd selection by Spielberg. The answer tries to guess - what could have excited Spielberg about this project :
It's a good story
The book has established itself as a cult favorite. Published in 40 countries, being on New York times best seller list. The ratings for the book are:
Amazon.com : 4.6/5 Barnes & Noble : 4.5/5 Goodreads : 4.3/580s video game popular culture
According to deadline.com (unable to post link), the book is loaded with references of popular culture rich in the 1980s video game icons.
Spielberg likes different
May be the story sounds radically different to anything else Steven Spielberg has done yet, but couldn't that be the very reason for him doing this movie.
When Adventures of Tintin was released, I was also surprised when I learned that Spielberg directed an animation movie. So I think he likes to do new things.
Good screenwriters
We should also note that there is a rewrite being done by Eric Eason & Zak Penn. Zak Penn has scripted movies like X-Men: The Last Stand and The Avengers. Eric Eason's movie has won Special Jury Award at Sundance.
The movie adaptation script must have excited Spielberg and these all could be the reasons for him deciding to direct this movie.
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Why did Steven Spielberg Make Ready Player One?
SPIELBERG: For me, this film was my great escape. This was a film, for me, that fulfilled all of my fantasies of places I go, in my imagination, when I get out of town. I got to live this for three years. I got to escape into the imagination of Ernest Cline and Zak Penn for three years.Does Steven Spielberg appear in Ready Player One?
Directed by Steven Spielberg, from a screenplay by Zak Penn and Cline, it stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, and Mark Rylance....Ready Player One (film)Ready Player OneProduced byDonald De Line Kristie Macosko Krieger Steven Spielberg Dan Farah16 more rowsWhat was Ready Player One inspired by?
"The title Ready Player One was inspired by old, classic arcade games. When you used to put your quarter into an old arcade game it would often say, 'Ready, player one,' and that was kind of the last thing that you would see before you were immersed in this two-dimensional world of the video game.How did they make Ready Player One?
An entirely different animal than the former picture\u2014a 1998 war drama which won five Oscars\u2014Ready Player Onewas \u201ca really complicated movie to make.\u201d Containing close to 1500 digital effects shots, the film was crafted through a \u201cmulti-tiered animation approach,\u201d consisting of motion capture, more traditional keyframe ...Steven Spielberg Directing Ready Player One Using a VR Headset
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