Warner Bros. Pictures has today shifted their release schedule, most notably moving the Ready Player One release date back three months. Look for the Steven Spielberg film to hit theaters March 30, 2018. The original Ready Player One release date had the film opening on December 15, 2017, which recently became the new slot for Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII. The new Ready Player One release date will see the film opening opposite an as-of-yet unrevealed Universal Monsters film.
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. In all three cases, the WB titles are the first films to claim those respective dates.
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. When the eccentric billionaire who created the OASIS dies, he offers up his vast fortune as the prize in an elaborate treasure hunt. Along with gamers from around the world, Wade joins the adventure, and quickly finds himself pitted against powerful corporate foes and other ruthless competitors who will do anything, in the oasis or the real world, to reach the treasure first.
Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Bates Motel) will star as Ar3mis, an OASIS avatar belonging to the coincidentally-named Samantha Cook. Ben Mendelsohn (Mississippi Grind, The Dark Knight Rises), meanwhile, is attached to play the story’s villain.
A Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures production, Ready Player One is based on Ernest Cline’s bestseller of the same name. The film is being directed by Spielberg, who is also producing alongside Donald De Line, under his De Line Pictures banner, Dan Farah and Kristie Macosko Krieger. Bruce Berman will serve as executive producer.
