Whenever a book is adapted into a movie or television series, it's to be expected that there will be some differences between the adaptation and the original source material. So even though the basic beats of the story may be the same on screen, those who've read the book in question will still be surprised by certain elements. Steven Spielberg is using that to his advantage for Ready Player One next year, because according to Mark Rylance, the acclaimed director has thrown in some extra challenges that weren't included in Ernest Cline's original novel. According to Rylance:
The book has a lot of puzzles and keys that the characters have to figure out, and Steven has introduced new puzzles and keys so that the people who read the book will still not know how it's going to work out. It's a marvelous story with twists and turns and many thrilling moments.
Mark Rylance, who is playing James Donovan Halliday in Ready Player One, briefly chatted with Vanity Fair during the Dunkirk premiere about the adaptation of the 2011 science fiction novel, saying that the movie is "very faithful" to the book, but is also an "original story." Regarding the latter, including new puzzles and keys will be one of the ways Steven Spielberg will keep longtime fans of the Ready Player One books on their toes, as they'll be just as clueless about how these challenges are cracked as the people in the audience who didn't read the book.
These puzzles and keys are just a few of the ways Ready Player One is taking creative liberties from the novel. For example, Deadpool star T.J. Miller is appearing as i-R0k, an online troll who played a minor role in the book. For the movie, however, i-R0k has been turned into a Boba Fett-wannabe bounty hunter who takes out players in the OASIS virtual world for a sizable fee. Ben Mendehlson also said that his character, Nolan Sorrento, will not be a faithful recreation of Sorrento from the printed page, though he will still serve as the main antagonist.
Set a few decades in the future, Ready Player One follows a teenager named Wade Watts who escapes from the difficulties in the real world by playing in OASIS as Parzival. Wade is among the many players who is looking for the Easter egg that OASIS creator Hames Halliday hid in the virtual world before his death, and whoever finds the Easter egg will win Halliday's fortune. In order to find the Easter egg, Wade will need to solve a variety of puzzles that are themed around 1980s pop culture, so if you read the original book and got a kick out of these challenges, you can look forward to a few new ones being thrown at the main protagonist and the other "gunters" (egg hunters). Ready Player One's main cast also includes Tye Sheridan as Wade, Olivia Cooke as Art3mis, Simon Pegg as Ogden Morrow, Lena Waithe as Aech, Win Morisaki as Daito, Philip Zhao as Shoto and Hannah John-Kamen.
Ready Player One will be ready for play in theaters on March 30.
