San Diego Comic-Con 2017 took place at the San Diego convention center Wednesday, July 19 through Sunday, July 23! Follow along as we recount our experience at SDCC 2017.
Now that I have thoroughly ran this wristband situation into the ground, let us talk about more happy stuff! The actual panels of Hall H! Warner Bros. was the first panel of the day on Saturday, July 22, and it started off with a bang. Warner Bros did their typical intro video, which features all of their movie franchises — Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, DC properties, among various other things. Of course, they opened up the side panel screens, which is always very exciting!
Then the real meat of the panel began. Chris Hardwick was the moderator, and the first movie he got started with was Ready Player One. For those not in the know, Ready Player One is a book written by Ernest Cline, and takes place in the year 2044, in a dystopian future, where much of the world lives in poverty. The main character, Wade Watts, lives in a rundown area of Chicago known as “The Stacks”, and to escape the dreary real world, plays in a VR world known as the Oasis. In the book, the creator of the Oasis, James Halliday dies, and upon his death, a contest is activated to find Easter Eggs within his Oasis world, and the winner gets control of Oasis for themselves. The story revolves around Wade Watts attempting to be the winner of this game. This book had become a pop culture phenomenon because of the nostalgic feelings it is able to conjure. Halliday, the creator of the Oasis, loved the 80s and video games, and movies, so the world of Oasis revolves around these themes.
If you can’t tell, I am pretty excited about this movie coming out. What was really exciting about this panel was the fact that we got to see the trailer release for Ready Player One which premiered at Comic-Con. It did release to the public pretty quickly after, but we were the first to see it!
After the trailer, author Ernest Cline, co-screenwriter Zak Penn, and much of the cast came out for a quick panel. This included Tye Sheridan, Ben Mendelsohn, Olivia Cooke, and T.J. Miller. Even more exciting was the fact that director Steven Spielberg showed up for the panel! That was very exciting as Spielberg has done many great films, and is arguably one of the most successful filmmakers in the history of filmmaking.
Ernest Cline seemed very impressed with how the film was coming along so far, but acknowledged how difficult it is to cram the contents of an entire novel into the span of a couple hours. He dropped a couple of interesting tidbits too. For example, the Iron Giant was seen in the trailer for the movie, and Ernest Cline and Spielberg confirmed that he will have a pretty important role in the film.
Cline also mentioned that some characters in the book might become less or more important in the movie.
Spielberg was very humble about the film-making process. He acknowledged that this could be a difficult movie to make, and joked that a younger director might have done a better job than him. At the same time, Ernest Cline gushed about Spielberg, saying he didn’t know how anyone but someone like Spielberg would be able to adapt his book. Spielberg also mentioned that he was careful to not include much of his own work in the movie, as he didn’t want to be too self referential, as his own work might make him appear snobby, I guess.
Tye Sheriden also talked a little about his involvement in the movie, and interestingly enough, Tye has his own VR Company, which he was working on when he was offered this role. Serendipitous, isn’t it?
The panel was pretty brief, and Chris Hardwick took a few audience questions. During the audience Q&A, there was an older gentlemen making faces in the background. This caused giggles among the audience as he was goofing off. Hardwick seemed to find it both amusing and perhaps a little annoying? For myself, it was a bit annoying, as the person trying to ask their question was being overshadowed by this guy in the background, but I digress. Overall, I was very impressed with the trailer, and everyone on the panel seemed to want to make this movie do well, and had emotional investment in it, it seemed like. I really can’t wait for March 30th, 2018, when this movie finally comes out! You can see the trailer here if you haven’t seen it yet:
Next up in Hall H for the Warner Bros. Pictures Presentation was Blade Runner 2049. Stay tuned for our recap and photos for that!
In the meantime, you can view more photos from the Ready Player One panel below.
I haven’t heard of this. It looks good!