Since its debut in 2011, the novel Ready Player One has become a cult phenomenon. Written by Ernest Cline, the novel not only crafts a dystopian universe, but a second virtual reality universe, known as OASIS, that the members of the dystopia escape to.
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And soon, audiences will be able to see these two universes come to life in Stephen Spielberg‘s film adaptation of Ready Player One. Tye Sheridan (X-Men: Apocalypse) plays the film’s starring role of Wade Watts, known within OASIS as Parzival.
In a recent interview with Collider, Sheridan described his character’s role within the film, which is currently filming. “[Wade Watts] is kind of this loser in the real world, but in this video game the creator of the game dies and leaves behind an easter egg hidden inside of the game that holds his trillions of dollars and control of the game. And he says whoever finds it in the game is the person who should take over the OASIS. So five years go by, no one’s found the easter egg and — there are three keys in order to get to the easter egg — he’s the first one to find the first key. So his avatar becomes famous in the video game, where in the real world he’s still kind of this loser, so he’s juggling both.”
With both Wade and the film itself juggling both the real world and OASIS, one of the biggest questions surrounding the film has been whether or not it will be able to technically and narratively pull that off. Sheridan revealed that, from a technical standpoint, “60% of the film takes place in this virtual video game and 40% takes place in the real world.”
While Ready Player One has been a sought-after property since the novel’s initial release, many believed that the film was simply unshootable. With Spielberg, and his experience with recent CGI-heavy films such as The Adventures of Tintin and The BFG, at the helm, however, many fans believe there is a little question of the complicated world of OASIS being pulled off.
According to Sheridan, “Everything that happens in The OASIS is all shot in motion capture,” a process that took seven to eight weeks of filming.
As intense as that motion capture process was, Sheridan shared one element of it that he hasn’t been privy to – the design of his virtual counterpart, Parzival. “That’s still kind of a mystery to me. I don’t know what the Avatar looks like, but I’ve heard that it doesn’t look like myself.”
Sheridan’s costars in the film include Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel), Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg (Star Trek: Beyond), and TJ Miller (Deadpool).
Ready Player One is set to open in theaters on March 30th, 2018.
