Ready Player One

**Ready Player One** is a 2018 film starring Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg and Mark Rylance, directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline and produced by Donald De Line, Dan Farah, Kristie Macosko Krieger and Spielberg.

The film was a financial failure as it generated a loss of $53 million.

## Plot

In 2045, people seek regular escape from life through the virtual reality entertainment universe OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), co-created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow of Gregarious Games. After Halliday's death, a pre-recorded message left by his avatar Anorak announces a game, granting ownership of OASIS to the first to find the Golden Easter egg within it, which is locked behind a gate requiring three keys. The contest has lured a number of ‘gunters’, or egg hunters, and the interest of Nolan Sorrento, the CEO of Innovative Online Industries (IOI) who seeks to control OASIS himself. IOI uses a number of indentured servants and employees called "Sixers" to find the egg.[a]

Wade Watts is an orphaned teenager living in the slums, or ‘stacks’, of Columbus, Ohio, with his Aunt Alice. In the OASIS, his avatar, Parzival, is best friends with Aech, a virtual mechanic. One day, Parzival befriends Art3mis, a well-known Gunter, sharing a common interest in Halliday's history. They review Halliday's life from the Archives, an online library of Halliday's life that came online upon the start of the games, with help from its Curator. They learn Halliday had several regrets in life, including his unrequited love for Morrow’s wife Kira and losing Morrow as a friend after forcing him to sign away his part of Gregarious Games. Using this information, they solve the first two challenges of Anorak's game: a car race across an ever-shifting Manhattan cityscape and a search for Kira in the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. Aech and two other friends, Daito and Sho, soon follow suit, the group becoming known as the "High Five" on the OASIS scoreboards.

Sorrento learns of Parzival's real-life identity through OASIS mercenary i-R0k, and attempts to sway Wade into joining IOI, but he refuses. In retaliation, Sorrento has IOI's head of operations F'Nale Zandor bomb Wade's stack, killing Alice. Art3mis' player, Samantha Cook, rescues Wade, but they are soon found by IOI. Samantha is captured and remanded to one of IOI's Loyalty Centers to work off the debt IOI acquired, while Wade is extracted by the other High Five – Helen (Aech), Toshiro (Daito), and Zhou (Sho). The group tracks down Samantha's location at IOI and they remotely help her escape, allowing her to assist them in the OASIS as Art3mis.

The third challenge requires one to play Halliday's favorite Atari 2600 game, in a castle on Planet Doom, which Sorrento has protected with a force field. Parzival recruits other OASIS players to help the rebels attack the IOI forces around the castle. Art3mis deactivates the force field, allowing Parzival to reach the console, but Sorrento activates the Cataclyst, a bomb that kills all the avatars on Planet Doom. However, due to having won a coin from the Archive's Curator earlier, Parzival gets an extra life, proceeding to play through Adventure to find its Easter egg; he is awarded the last key. He opens the gate and is greeted by Anorak and given a contract to sign; however, he recognizes it as the same contract Morrow signed to turn over his part of Gregarious and refuses. Anorak changes form, becomes Halliday, and reveals that the contract was the final test to make sure Parzival would not make the same mistakes he did. Parzival is given the Golden Egg and control of OASIS.

In the real world, Sorrento and Zandor fail to stop Parzival before he wins. They are quickly arrested for the bombing. Morrow, revealed to have been the Curator, offers his services to Wade. He gladly accepts. Wade decides to run OASIS with the other High Five, agreeing to ban IOI's Loyalty Centers from forcing people into servitude resulting in them being shut down and to shut down the OASIS twice a week for everyone to spend more time in the real world. Meanwhile, he and Samantha move into an apartment together.