The Upcoming Ready Player One Sequel Has a Big Challenge After the First Movie’s Changes

In 2018, Ready Player One debuted in theaters to positive reviews. The movie adapted Ernest Cline’s pop culture-packed sci-fi novel about a dystopian future where people spend most of their days in a virtual reality world created by famed inventor James Halliday (Mark Rylance). Steven Spielberg helmed Ready Player One, and Cline has since authored Ready Player Two in 2020— a sequel novel with its own highly anticipated film adaptation on the way.

There’s also a 2027 graphic novel adaptation planned, which is said to be more faithful to Cline’s source material. But when Spielberg adapted Ready Player One for theaters, he and screenwriter Zak Penn made quite a few changes to the story. These decisions helped make the story more palatable to a cinematic audience, but Ready Player Two is, naturally, heavily influenced by the events of its predecessor. Spielberg will only be returning as executive producer for the upcoming sequel, with Penn actively developing the script, but those alterations to the story could potentially create some major obstacles for the sequel to overcome.

The High Five’s Dynamics Could Look Very Different in Ready Player Two

Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

One of the most significant differences between Ready Player One the book and its movie adaptation concerns the High Five. Wade “Perzival” Watts (Tye Sheridan) and his best friend Ache (Lena Waithe) meet and team up with Shoto (Phillip Zhao) and Daito (Win Morisaki), whom fans might remember as the ninja and samurai siblings from the Ready Player One movie. The biggest change is what Wade discovers while infiltrating Innovative Online Industries, the world’s largest internet provider and VR hardware manufacturer, in the book. Though not the most realistic depiction of computer hacking, Wade’s dive into the IOI’s files reveals that Daito is brutally assassinated in the real world by Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) and the IOI. Even worse, they stage it as a suicide. This introduces a much grimmer tone to the story, especially once Shoto learns the news, with Daito’s death becoming a driving force for the High Five up until their battle against the IOI.

This will likely be Penn’s first hurdle in writing the film sequel’s narrative, as Daito is dead in the Ready Player Two novel. Since he is alive and well by the end of Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, Penn might have to add another character to the overall story, while navigating a completely different dynamic within the High Five. Without speculating too far, this could complicate the Ready Player Two film, since the group shares both the spoils of their victory and equal control of Halliday’s virtual world by the end of the Ready Player One movie, versus Wade holding sole legal control of the OASIS in the novel. What may be helpful to Penn is that Ready Player Two clarifies Wade split ownership of the Gregarious Simulation Systems (GSS), which technically owns the OASIS and was formerly run by Halliday and Ogden, between the surviving members of the High Five. As a result, this could provide a lead for Penn to follow when adapting their dynamic in the cinematic sequel.

Spielberg’s Ready Player One Ending Undermines the Risk Factor in Ready Player Two

If there were a figurative Snorlax blocking the sequel’s narrative path, it would be how Spielberg’s Ready Player One concluded. At the climax of the movie and its source material, the High Five and a rag-tag group of OASIS Gunters battle with the IOI. The Battle of Castle Anorak (the conclusive fight named in accordance with its location) was a massive fight that involved various mechs and vehicles from iconic franchises like Godzilla, Iron Giant, and Mobile Suit Gundam. As the final scenes play out, Wade’s closing narration mentions a new OASIS policy: it closes twice a week to ensure humanity’s connection with the real world.

“And even though it’s less popular, we decided to shut down the OASIS every Tuesday and Thursday, just to make sure everybody goes outside.” — Wade Watts

While the latest VR Hype may have come and gone, much of Cline’s Ready Player Two novel touches on the addictive nature of virtual reality and technology dependency. This is especially important to understand, as Wade’s twice-a-week shutdown policy at the end of Spielberg’s film makes for an interesting contrast to the central technology introduced in Cline’s follow-up novel. Put simply, the sequel is built around a new device, the OASIS Neural Interface (ONI), which allows users to fully experience the virtual world with all five senses. It also comes with explicit warnings that it shouldn’t be removed while being operated, lest users suffer brain damage. While users aren’t necessarily locked out of the OASIS in the book, the ONI does automatically deactivate after being used for 12 hours.

Users are also locked out of the device for the same amount of time thereafter. Within the context of the novel, the point of the 24-hour total deactivation and lockout periods is to lessen the chance someone becomes addicted to the ONI. The 2018 movie’s ending provides something of a challenge, then, as everyone is already used to being completely locked out of the OASIS for double that amount of time. Of course, the sequel movie could explore the tension between the High Five’s intentions and the arrival of a technology that makes the OASIS even more immersive than ever. The sequel could lean into the anti-addiction message, emphasizing how the ONI alters users’ minds and its risk of brain damage. This is just speculation, but it would mean the Ready Player Two movie wouldn’t have to ignore the first film’s ending.

The IOI Could Be More Complicated in Ready Player Two

Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

At the conclusion of Spielberg’s Ready Player One, Sorrento is arrested for his crimes, and the High Five are greeted and congratulated by Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg). Wade’s voice-over then explains that the High Five banned IOI’s loyalty centers, where the company held its indentured workers, from accessing the OASIS, forcing them all to shut down. While this doesn’t mean the IOI has ceased to exist, the movie presents the corporation as having suffered a seemingly definitive defeat, giving the impression that its influence over the OASIS has come to an end, even if it didn’t officially go out of business.

The Ready Player Two novel takes a different approach to the IOI’s future. In the book, the High Five become co-owners of GSS. After they release Halliday’s secret ONI technology, its success sends IOI’s stock into a continued decline. GSS eventually takes advantage of that situation, orchestrating a hostile takeover of IOI and absorbing the corporation and all its assets. The High Five then releases all the indentured workers and forgives their outstanding debts. This gives the sequel movie an interesting challenge: the Ready Player One movie leaves the IOI in a different position from the one it occupies in the sequel novel. The filmmakers need to establish what happened to the IOI after its loyalty centers closed and how it managed to remain operational until its stock plummeted.

The simple workaround is for Wade and the High Five to acquire what’s left of the IOI’s facilities and technology. Given the advanced extent of the IOI’s tech, this could potentially give Ready Player Two another way to explore the secret development of the ONI, rather than following the novel’s reveal of Halliday’s prototype in the GSS vault. It could also open the door for the sequel’s antagonist: a rogue artificial intelligence modeled after Halliday’s Avatar, the wizard Anorak.

Admittedly, it may be a while until audiences see how Penn adapts Ready Player Two. While the screenwriter has stated he’s actively working on the script, few details have been leaked, and a director has yet to be attached to the film. To that end, Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke are expected to return, with Sheridan expressing interest, and Warner Bros. Pictures still anticipates a 2028 release date. All of which grants plenty of time and possibility for the right pieces to fall into place. In the meantime, fans can revisit the OASIS in Cline’s books and Spielberg’s movie adaptation, as well as the graphic novel once it’s released in 2027.

Release Date

March 29, 2018

Runtime

140 minutes

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  Olivia Cooke

  Art3mis / Samantha

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  Tye Sheridan

  Parzival / Wade

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