Steven Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One’ Could Cross $50M in U.S. Bow

The big-budget film is opening early to get a jump on Easter weekend.

Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One has kicked off its box-office run with $3.8 million in Wednesday night previews and has a shot at crossing a pleasing $50 million in its U.S. debut, according to early Thursday returns.

The big-budget film is opening everywhere on Thursday in order to get a jump on Easter weekend and is on course to earn $13 million-plus for the day.

Ready Player One will easily be Spielberg’s biggest opening since the last Indiana Jones movie, which launched to $100.1 million in summer 2008. Warner Bros. continues to project a $45 million-$50 million domestic debut for Ready Player One; others think the sci-fi adventure could approach $54 million to $55 million, but caution that it is tough to make a definitive call at such an early stage (the big question is how frontloaded the audience will be).

Ready Player One - which marks Spielberg’s return to popcorn fare - is a big gamble, considering it cost Warners and Village Roadshow an estimated $175 million to produce before marketing. It also launches in numerous major foreign markets timed to its U.S. bow, including China. On Wednesday, the pic took in $2.9 million in its first handful of markets, led by South Korea ($980,000) and France ($794,000). Its foreign total is $3.2 million, including Tuesday previews.

The movie, based on Ernest Cline’s pop-culture-soaked novel about a teen’s quest to win control over a virtual universe, will need to do sizable business over the course of its run to land in the black.

Spielberg remains one of Hollywood’s most respected directors. Ready Player One is the first film he has made for Warners since A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which was released in 2001.

Infused with references to the 1980s, Ready Player One stars Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts, a young man who gets caught up in the virtual-reality world known as the OASIS, which was created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). Watts and his friends are determined to find the Easter eggs that will give them control of OASIS.

Spielberg directed from an adapted script by Zak Penn and Cline. Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller and Simon Pegg also star.

Two other films open nationwide over Easter weekend: Tyler Perry’s psychological thriller Acrimony and the faith-based God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness. They each opned yesterday, Friday.