‘Ready Player One’ Early Footage Brings Spielberg’s Casting Calls to Life (VIDEO)

Steven Spielberg has released a trailer for his new movie Ready Player One at Comic-Con.

According to Project Casting, last year Steven Spielberg and a group of casting directors held world-wide talent searches for actors to play and star in the upcoming Ready Player One. Now, at San Diego Comic-Con, we have an early glimpse inside of Spielberg’s vision.

On Saturday, Spielberg revealed the first footage from Ready Player One, the movie adaptation of Ernie Cline’s scifi novel. The trailer shows a look inside the world of Oasis including colors, lasers and pop culture references. In fact, the trailer included pop culture references alluding to Back to the Future, Iron Giant and Akira.

The final scene, which is a big race, is actually not in the novel, which suggests Spielberg may have taken creative liberty with the novel.

Earlier this year, casting directors Ellen Lewis and Debbie DeLisi Casting announced open casting calls for several lead roles in the movie. Casting directors were looking for kids and teen actors to audition for roles in the movie. Producers were especially looking for Asian-American actors to play the characters Wade Watts, Shoot, and Daito, Project Casting reported. But, Steven Spielberg not only had a talent search. The director began hiring artists to work on the movie. 

Ready Player One stars Tye Sheridan as Wade, a young kid who lives physically in one world but prefers to mentally live in the Oasis, a massive virtual neighborhood on the internet. When the show’s creator dies, he starts a worldwide treasure hunt for control of his massive company and Wade, along with a group of other people, devote their life to the game, a game that rests largely on the knowledge of pop culture.

Ready Player One hits theaters on March 30th.