Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi movie lands on Netflix’s top 10 chart as the wait for a sequel continues after 6 years. His 1977 classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a culture-changing event, as was his 1982 hit E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Spielberg returned to sci-fi for 1993’s Jurassic Park, launching the era of CGI blockbusters, then went dark for the trio of A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report and War of the Worlds. In 2018, Spielberg unleashed a dystopian sci-fi thriller full of pop culture Easter eggs, and six years later there is still no official word on a sequel.
As the wait continues for that Ready Player One sequel to happen, the original film is enjoying a solid run on streaming, landing at number 7 on the Netflix top 10 U.S. movies chart for the week of February 5-11, 2024.
What Is Going On With Ready Player Two?
Ready Player One grossed $607 million worldwide in 2018, making it a significant hit, though not a blockbuster. Talk of a sequel began immediately, and picked up steam when original book author Ernest Cline in 2020 published the follow-up Ready Player Two. While promoting the book in 2020, Cline claimed that a film sequel was “in the early stages” of development (via Inverse).
Despite Cline’s optimistic Ready Player Two update, Warner Bros. has yet to officially greenlight a sequel, and there has been no substantial news on such a project since the book was published in 2020. For his part, Ready Player One star Tye Sheridan has expressed interest in returning, telling ComicBook.com in 2020 that he “hopes” he gets to play Wade Watts again.
As for whether Spielberg would himself return for a Ready Player Two movie, prospects seem remote at best. The director is famously sequel-averse, and there’s no reason to believe he’d change his habits to revisit Ready Player One. Spielberg has yet to line up his next project, but his wish list is reported to include a Bullitt remake starring Bradley Cooper and a George Gershwin biopic. It seems unlikely he’d set aside legitimate dream projects in order to direct a Ready Player One sequel, even if the first film is now a Netflix hit.
Ready Player One
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Adapted from Ernest Cline’s novel of the same name, Ready Player One follows Wade Watts, an orphan who desperately wants to win a seemingly-impossible video game competition that would see him win ownership of the OASIS, a sophisticated virtual reality game that had revolutionized modern life. Helped by his friends and racing against time to find the hidden clues before the OASIS is claimed by an evil conglomerate, Wade’s love of the game is put to the test.
- Release Date
- March 29, 2018
- Director
- Steven Spielberg
- Cast
- T.J. Miller , Hannah John-Kamen , Lena Waithe , Mark Rylance , Mckenna Grace , Letitia Wright , Ben Mendelsohn , Ralph Ineson , Simon Pegg , Olivia Cooke , Tye Sheridan
- Runtime
- 2h 20m
- Writers
- Eric Eason , Zak Penn , Ernest Cline
- Budget
- 155–175 million
- Studio(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures
- Distributor(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures
