Interest
Pop Culture Extravaganza Ready Player One Film Adds Spike's Spaceship
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Sword Art Online creator Reki Kawahara and One-Punch Man manga artist Yūsuke Murata, along with Sword Art Online director Tomohiko Ito, illustrator Yūji Kaida (Gundam model kits box art), the film's producer Donald De Line, and original author Ernest Cline attended a fan event of Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One sci-fi film. The event included a special screening of the film's trailer and exclusive footage which revealed more anime-centric cameos that will appear in the film.
Fans at the event got a sneak peek at the Swordfish II, Spike Spiegel's spacecraft from Cowboy Bebop, and an appearance by Hello Kitty. Ernest Cline's original novel, dubbed the "holy grail of pop culture," is full of mostly references from the 1980s but it does make mention of Cowboy Bebop. The anime debuted in 1998.
The new footage also confirmed appearances by RoboCop. Previous trailers already showed Overwatch's Tracer, Street Fighter's Chun-Li and the original RX-78-2 Gundam, Kaneda's bike from Akira, the DeLorean from Back to the Future, King Kong, the boombox from Say Anything..., Speed Racer's Mach 5, Chucky from Child's Play, and The Iron Giant.
The original novel features a plethora of early Japanese video game and anime references, from Neon Genesis Evangelion to Toei's Spider-Man (written as Supaidaman in the book) live-action series. It will be interesting which of these properties the Hollywood producers decided to shell out licensing costs to include, because if so audiences might get to see Robotech, Voltron, Mazinger Z, and actual Gundam battle on the big screen.
However, fans hoping to see Ultraman will be disappointed. Cline revealed in a recent interview that the tokusatsu hero will not be appearing due to licensing reasons.
Ready Player One stars X-Men: Apocalypse alumni Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts. He's joined by Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Ben Mendelsohn, and Olivia Cooke. The film opens in theaters on March 30 in the U.S. and on April 20 in Japan.
Source: Comic Natalie
