The big-budget film is opening early to get a jump on Easter weekend.
Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One has kicked off its box-office run with a pleasing $3.8 million in Wednesday night previews.
On Thursday, the event film will expand into a total of 4,200 theaters in hopes of commanding a North American start of $45 million-$50 million by the time Easter Sunday wraps. That will easily be enough to top the Easter box office.
Still, the movie — marking Spielberg’s return to popcorn fare — is a big gamble, considering it cost Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow an estimated $175 million to produce before marketing. It also launches in numerous major foreign markets timed to its U.S. bow, including China.
Ready Player One, based on Ernest Cline’s pop-culture-soaked novel about a teen’s quest to win control over a virtual universe, will have no trouble topping the holiday box office, but it will need to do sizable business over the course of its run to land in the black.
Spielberg remains one of Hollywood’s most respected directors. Ready Player One is the first film he has made for Warners since A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which was released in 2001.
Infused with references to the 1980s, Ready Player One stars Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts, a young man who gets caught up in the virtual-reality world known as the OASIS, which was created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). Watts and his friends are determined to find the Easter eggs that will give them control of OASIS.
Spielberg directed from an adapted script by Zak Penn and Cline. Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller and Simon Pegg also star.
Two other films open nationwide over Easter weekend: Tyler Perry’s psychological thriller Acrimony and the faith-based God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness. They don’t open until Friday.
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