Interest
New Ready Player One Trailer Includes Willy Wonka Song Cover
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
I wasn't able to spot Spike Spiegel's Swordfish II spacecraft from Cowboy Bebop or RoboCop in the newest trailer, but Ready Player One did manage to tap into my childhood, finally, with an eerie cover of "Pure Imagination." The original track by Jamie Cullum appeared in the 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory live-action film starring the late, great Gene Wilder and was a wornout VHS tape in my household. While a previous trailer included an instrumental variation of the song, this one includes vocals. Check out the newest trailer for Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One sci-fi film based on Ernest Cline's original novel below for more footage of the Iron Giant and maybe catch any references I missed.
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 film's staff also unveiled a new poster for the movie inspired by Drew Struzan's film poster work from the 1980s. Consider it an upgrade from the previous poster featuring character Wade Watts' impossibly long leg.
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.
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