Were you surprised by some of the characters producer Kristie Macosko Krieger was able to secure? Was not securing Ultra Man unexpected?
[With Ultra Man] it’s just that there was a lawsuit between the people who own it so there was no way around it. Other than that, no, because I pretty much got everything that they wanted.
Except for “Star Wars.”
You know, to tell you the truth, I don’t know how you feel, but I feel like if it had been filmed with “Star Wars” stuff it would have overwhelmed the movie. The movie shouldn’t be about the references, and I feel like “Star Wars” would be like where would you stop? If you could use “Star Wars” characters I feel like half the [players] in the OASIS that’s all they would do, if not more. Same with Marvel or even DC, it was just like we can’t just populate the world with the most popular characters.
I think it would have been fun just to see a Death Star floating in space somewhere. I’m sure Steven would never have gone overboard. I think it’s funny that even his former producing partner, who’s now in charge of Lucasfilm, said “No.” That’s the backstory I want to know, like who said no to not letting that happen.
It’s weird, he wasn’t particularly upset about that. I think also it’s probably he doesn’t really feel like competing with that. That’s the other thing, they’re churning out “Star Wars” movies all the time.
When writing the script did you notate that there would be specific references because if it was in the book it needed to be in the screenplay?
I notated. I would say she pulls out the pulse rifle from “Aliens” or the rocket launcher from “Halo,” whatever. For awhile i-R0k [T.J. Miller] flew around in the Slave I, speaking of a “Star Wars” reference, or I think I set it for enough where we won’t get sued for it, but that fell by the wayside for a variety of reasons. You had to. I put the references in and then as things changed I would change them because you needed it to be as accurate as possible because it was being boarded.
Obviously, the 80’s references are integral to the plot, but was there anything that you thought would be too much? For example, there’s no “Blade Runner” reference which you’d almost expect in this context.
I actually at one point wrote a sequence set in “Blade Runner” and I think the problem was they knew the new “Blade Runner” was gonna come out right around then. In fact, I think I had somebody driving Deckhard’s car and I think they didn’t give us the right to do it. I take it back, I wouldn’t have minded a couple Blade Runner references. The Blade Runner gun would have been pretty cool.
I was talking to a friend who also saw the movie last night and we were reflecting on the fact that 80’s nostalgia doesn’t seem to be goinging anywhere. From this movie to “Stranger Things” to “GLOW, etc. Do you feel like the 80’s are sort of like World War II and like the early sixties, where we’re just always going to have movies and TV shows set during those periods?
I’m not sure. I do think there’s some interesting points to be made about how between the revolution in video games, the way movies changed. Growing up in the 70’s, popular movies like the ones we’re talking about were considered to be the opposite of art. Spielberg even. I remember as a kid thinking, “Wait, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind,’ this isn’t like a popcorn movie, this is awesome. It’s mind blowing.” I think that he really brought about a change in the idea that you couldn’t do something that was popular. And I think the same thing was happening in comic books with “X-Men” and then with Frank Miller after that. The Dark Phoenix story is really dark and deep and interesting and [I remember a time when my parents] thought, “It’s just comic books, how good could it be?” I think the 80’s became this kind of focal point for a bunch of different industries kind of changing rapidly in terms of video games and movies and I guess less TV. I think eventually it’ll go away and there will be nostalgia for something else. I don’t think it’s gonna have the staying power of World War II or whatever. I think that it’ll have its time, and then other nostalgia will crop its head up. The funny thing is when I first started in Hollywood my writing partner and I used to joke that we wanted to make a remake of a movie that had just come out. We wanted it to be instant nostalgia, because it felt like that’s where it was going. But I guess that’s somewhat backed off these days, if we are still talking about the 80’s. I always point out in the book the contest is about the 80’s, and Halliday was obsessed with the 80’s, but the whole OASIS isn’t the 80’s. That’s something we really tried to delineate in the movie, that not every reference is to the 80’s because Halliday didn’t build every single part of the OASIS.
I’ve seen you were credited with a pass on “Suicide Squad 2.” Is that something you’re still involved in?
I did write a draft for “Suicide Squad 2,” I think last summer. I forget now. They needed something very quickly and they asked me to write a draft and I did it, but I was already working on two or three other projects, including still working on this one. It was a quick draft that I wrote and then dropped off, so I don’t actually know what’s going on. I haven’t stayed abreast of it. I could just ask someone from Warner Brothers who’s standing around here. (Laughs). One of the things I’ve learned as a screenwriter is you can either get embraced, like Steven Spielberg brings me in, keeps me on, tells me not to go anywhere, and flies me to set for the entire production. Most screenwriting jobs aren’t like that. They hire you, you do something, you go away. You kind of learn to forget about it if you’re not [actively involved]. I try to pretend that I never did it. I totally forgot that I worked on “Pacific Rim 2” until I realized a couple weeks ago when I saw how many different writers worked on it. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, that’s right, me and Guillermo [del Toro] wrote a draft, 17 writers ago.”
I have one last question for you. Letitia Wright, who everyone has fallen in love with from “Black Panther,” has been credited with a role in the movie. Is she still there? Did she get cut out? I don’t remember her.
I don’t know. It was funny. She is really funny in “Black Panther.” When I heard that she was in it I’m like, “Who is she in the movie?” Maybe she was one of the Sixers, I’m not sure. It’s really a mystery to me. It keeps coming up. I mean who does it say she plays? Does it say on IMDB?
A character named Reb.
Oh. She plays one of the Rebs. Oh, well, then it wasn’t a big part. I mean she was kind of in the background then. Yeah. I never wrote a line for her, or if I did it was like get down. Watch out.
“Ready Player One” opens nationwide on April 28.