The trailer for Steven Spielberg’s big screen adaptationReady Player Onemade its debut last weekend at San Diego Comic-Con and people went nuts for it. The movie, which is based on the best selling 2011 novel byErnest Cline, is looking to replicate the pop culture holy grail that the book claims to be and the trailer proved that to be incredibly clear. There are many Easter Eggs provided in the trailer, so many that fans have watched it multiple times trying to figure out every last one of them. But one of the biggest (no pun intended) Easter eggs was a shot ofThe Iron Giantdominating the scene.
The Los Angeles Timesis reporting that during theReady Player Onepanel atComic-Con, Steven Spielberg declared that theIron Giantis “a real major player” in theReady Player One sci-fi adaptation. This is great news for fans of the cult favorite movie, but not much else in terms ofIron Giantinformation was given. It would make sense thatThe Iron Giantis in the movie because he too is property of Warner Bros. In fact, just about every Easter Egg found in the trailer is owned or distributed by Warner Bros.
The Warner Bros. correlation has become a point of contention for many fans who assume that the movie is just going to be one giant, long Warner Bros. commercial. That could be true, but we’re just going off of a brief clip that highlighted some information from the book and brought it to life. Many fans are speculating thatReady Player Oneis going to be used as a springboard to promote a possibleIron Giantsequel.
Warner Bros. releasedThe Iron Giantin 1999 and was deemed a box office failure by nearly everybody involved. Many blame Warner Bros.' lack of promotion, most notably a missed opportunity with a Burger King tie-in, for basically dooming the movie at the box office.The Iron Giantwas one of Warner’s best testing movies and the highest at that time in 15 years, but it has been reported that Warner Bros. simply dropped the ball on the project. Analysts called it a victim of bad timing and a “severe miscalculation of how to attract an audience.” Despite the poor box office standings, the movie gained widespread critical acclaim and even holds a 96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
We still have quite a while to wait beforeReady Player Onehits the theaters to see just how big of a part thatThe Iron Giantplays, but the information did come from Mr.Steven Spielberg, so it carries some substantial weight.Ready Player Onehit theaters on March 30th, 2018 and is projected to do very well at the box office. Let’s just hope that Warner Bros. does a better job with this project than they initially did withThe Iron Giant.
