The legendary director returns to his adventure roots for Ready Player One. He, along with the exciting cast he assembled, tell Georgia Humphreys more about the high-tech film.
It’s 2045, and the world is a scary place. There’s widespread unemployment, the population is beset by poverty and people feel utterly hopeless. But gamers are able to escape, by becoming their own personal avatars and entering an infinite digital universe called Oasis, where they can be whatever they choose to be.
At least, that’s the future as imagined by US author Ernest Cline in his best-seller Ready Player One, which has now been turned into an action adventure film by none other than Steven Spielberg.
“All you need is an imagination, and that will take you far in the Oasis,” explains the director, who has been at the helm of such blockbusters as ET, Jaws and Jurassic Park.
“But when you escape from reality, you’re also, in a way, divesting yourself of any real human contact. So, the story is entertaining, but there is also a bit of a social commentary.”
The young hero at the centre of the story, underdog Wade Watts, is played by Tye Sheridan, 21.
And, understandably, the young actor - who’s also starred in X-Men: Apocalypse - was incredibly nervous before meeting 71-year-old Spielberg for the first time.
“I actually remember calling my dad and he was like, ‘You know what, just enjoy the opportunity and I’m sure you’re going to be great’,” he says. “I always call my dad before I do stuff. It puts me at ease.”
But the experience was even more overwhelming once he went inside the room, and realised Spielberg would be operating the camera himself, at times from just two feet away.
“There’s always an intimacy with him,” notes Sheridan, “which I think does disarm you.”
British actress Olivia Cooke was in that very same audition - and won the role of Samantha and her avatar Art3mis, who “opens up the mind and heart” of Wade and his avatar Parzival.
“You’re put into a waiting room that has various Steven Spielberg memorabilia from all his different films and you’re just sat there just trying to calm yourself down,” recalls the 24-year-old, best known so far for US TV series Bates Motel.
When it came to casting the power-hungry Nolan Sorrento, the head of a giant corporation which wants control of Oasis, Spielberg chose Australian star Ben Mendelsohn.
“I first saw Ben in the TV series Bloodline, which I was completely infatuated with,” recalls the filmmaker.
“I said to myself, ‘I don’t know when or in what, but I am going to work with that guy’.”
Sorrento’s chance to take over the Oasis comes when its creator, video game designer James Halliday (played by Mark Rylance), passes away without any heirs.
To find a worthy winner of his vast fortune and full ownership of the Oasis, he leaves behind a game within the game - along with three challenges, they also have to find an Easter Egg hidden somewhere inside the virtual universe.
And when Wade’s avatar Parzival tops the leaderboard, the evil Sorrento decides to drastically up the ante, and it becomes a matter of life or death.
Cleverly, in line with the book’s popular culture references, the film itself is crammed with Easter Eggs from iconic video games, comic books and films.
But even viewers who are not gamers themselves will be enraptured with the reality-bending