Ready Player Two - Is It Happening?

Film adaptations of popular novels are a Hollywood tradition — especially when the novel is part of a series, making its financial prospects even more lucrative. So, where's the movie adaptation of "Ready Player Two"?

Steven Spielberg directed "Ready Player One," the 2018 film version of the 2011 novel of the same name by Ernest Cline. The movie raked in a worldwide box office total of nearly $600 million and earned decent Rotten Tomatoes scores (72% from critics, 78% from audiences). Such numbers seemed more than enough to move forward with follow-up installments based on sequel novels covering earlier eras. "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," its series' sophomore outing, debuted in theaters just one year after the first film. The same was true for the film sequels to "Twilight" and "The Hunger Games." More than five years after "Ready Player One" debuted in theaters, Wade Watts and his fellow High Five friends haven't returned to cineplexes, despite the existence of a sequel novel, "Ready Player Two." Why the delay? The follow-up's journey to the big screen is a bit more complicated than the sci-fi/fantasy page-turners that came before it in movie history. Will "Ready Player Two" happen? Let's find out.

For starters, "Ready Player Two" the movie didn't immediately commence production following the 2018 release of "Ready Player One" because "Ready Player Two" the novel wasn't published yet. Author Ernest Cline's sequel hit bookshelves in November 2020, more than two and a half years after the theatrical debut of the first film.

Since Cline co-wrote the "Ready Player One" screenplay, it's possible to imagine a scenario in which Warner Bros. collaborated with the author ahead of the novel's publication to fast-track a "Ready Player Two" film bowing near or before its literary counterpart. Alternatively, Warner Bros. could have developed the project completely independent of whatever Cline wrote next. Though abnormal, this wouldn't have been entirely unprecedented. The production team behind HBO's "Game of Thrones" — another saga under the helm of Warner Bros. Discovery — eventually produced seasons faster than George R.R. Martin wrote books. The show ultimately charted its own course forward for the story, completing the still-as-of-yet unfinished story of Martin's novels.

Additionally, once "Ready Player Two" the book finally dropped, its reception proved less glowing than its predecessor's. Reading between the lines (if you'll forgive the unintentional pun), we also might infer that the pandemic and subsequent merger of Warner Bros. with Discovery may have contributed to delays for any and all projects in early development at the studio, as its brass reprioritized its pipeline and even outright canceled projects well into production.

Creatives close to the franchise have publicly acknowledged "Ready Player Two" being on their radar, even if its arrival won't happen for a while. In August 2018, actor Olivia Cooke, who plays Samantha/Art3mis, told Digital Spy that she was already obligated to return for multiple additional films. "I've signed my life away," Cooke said, "so I'm contracted to sequels, but I don't know [if they're happening]. I haven't heard anything. We'll see."

Thickening the plot, actor Tye Sheridan, who portrays Wade/Parzival, spoke with Comic Book in September 2020, and mentioned that people frequently ask about the status of another movie. "I would love to have an answer for you," Sheridan said, "and I think people will and can speculate all they want, but I don't really know what the plan is yet."

If anyone would know for sure about a big-screen "Ready Player Two," it's Ernest Cline. In December 2020, just a month after the book's publication, Inverse directly asked the author about the movie. The verdict? It's coming — or, at least, it was at the time. "It's in the early stages right now," Cline said. He continued, "We talked about the possibility of there being a 'Ready Player Two' when we were making 'Ready Player One.' In Hollywood you never know. I really tried my best to focus on just writing a sequel to my book ... The movie will sort itself out later."

(Minor spoilers here.) Given that a "Ready Player Two" film would be based on, y'know, a book, we already have some semblance of what the story of the movie could dive into. In the novel, something thought to be impossible becomes reality: OASIS Neural Interface, a version of the OASIS virtual-reality technology that can actually infiltrate users' minds and affect them physically. Naturally, this sparks a lot of controversy, especially as artificial intelligence personifies itself and threatens not only the pixelated world of the OASIS, but its very real users. Such topics are uncannily timely in today's socioeconomic climate.

Beyond heavy philosophy, "Ready Player Two" the novel includes virtual OASIS worlds that pay tribute to Prince, director/screenwriter John Hughes, and other iconic figures and stories from across entertainment history, all of which would be fun to see materialized onscreen. Can you imagine a fever-dream musical sequence of Prince's greatest hits depicted in some sort of obstacle course-style challenge? Or getting to see the iconic sets of films like "The Breakfast Club" or "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" on the big screen again?

Furthermore, in the first film, Steven Spielberg added a sequence taking place inside the classic horror film "The Shining." It's a cool, reverential scene not found in the "Ready Player One" novel. Should Spielberg return to direct "Ready Player Two," it's within reason to imagine he might introduce other well-crafted tributes to cinema favorites not featured in the book. It's also safe to assume the director would continue to push technological boundaries forward both in ways the audience can perceive and behind the scenes.

Given Olivia Cooke's aforementioned remarks that she's agreed to be in future movies should they happen, we might wonder if Warner Bros. made similar agreements with other members of the original cast. Characters portrayed in the "Ready Player One" movie by Tye Sheridan, Lena Withe, Philip Zhao, Ben Mendelsohn, and Simon Pegg are all prominently part of the narrative in the "Ready Player Two" novel, and there's no obvious reason at this time why any of them wouldn't return.

In addition to welcoming back most of the original actors, the "Ready Player Two" movie would need to cast a number of new characters. These include the members of the "L0w Four," a group of Gunthers (L0hengrin, Lilith, Wukong, Rizzo, and Kastagir) who team up with the High Five. Having nearly twice the amount of hardcore gamers among the main cast effectively makes the film an ensemble picture, which could differentiate the rhythm of the story nicely. The first film doesn't have as many characters to balance among its script.

(Minor spoilers here.) The film would also need to find its antagonist, Faisal. That being said, with Faisal effectively being an anti-Anorak, perhaps Mark Rylance could return to play the foil of his previous character.

Though the book and movie versions of "Ready Player One" contain the same basic plot and characters, the latter strays from the narrative fairly significantly in several key ways. Most notably, in the novel, Wade and Samantha don't meet in person until the last scene. They come to know each other quite intimately within the OASIS, but physically share the same space in the real world only in the book's final pages. The movie, however, lets them spend half the runtime together, in person. A "Ready Player Two" movie would need to adapt the characters' development to reflect that.

Furthermore, Daito, a member of the High Five, dies in the "Ready Player One" novel. In the movie, he survives. This means that actor-singer Win Morisaki could return in "Ready Player Two" to once again portray the character, whose strong friendship with the High Five might be explored more deeply than the book allows. While the High Five honor Daito's memory in numerous ways in the book, the character's ongoing big-screen presence would continue the thematic lessons at play in the High Five's chemistry with one another. The possibilities of the OASIS Neural Interface are simultaneously exciting and dangerous. The controversial ethics behind the technology can force the friends to confront their differing philosophies, and they'll need to remember the strong bond they formed in the first film more than ever, which might be easier when they're all present.