From the San Diego Comic Con, here’s the first Ready Player One trailer—a teaser that will be to aging nerds what pornography is to aging nerds. It’s got a Rush song and, in a perfect pairing, too many dated pop culture references to count. The Iron Giant, Back to the Future, Akira, and Nightmare on Elm St. are among the not-so-subtle nods given in just this brief look.
Based on the likewise references-giddy book, Ready Player One stars X-Men: Apocalypse‘s Tye Sheridan as a kid we follow through a virtual world of competition and being gently amused by iconic characters of yore. Steven Spielberg directs—perhaps explaining how Warner Bros. was able to get even a portion of the licensing clearances they did here. Between this film and Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s Sony-Marvel partnership, this is truly a watershed moment of studio’s putting aside competition to take our dorkiest spending money.
Ready Player One arrives March 30, 2018.
