Will 'Ready Player One' Be the Week's Biggest Movie?

Steven Spielberg's movies have struggled at the box office lately, and his latest, Ready Player One, needs to be a hit to justify its big budget. The fantasy movie should have a decent holiday weekend and race past last week's top movie, Pacific Rim: Uprising, but it remains to be seen whether it will be able to have sustained success in theaters.

Via The Hollywood Reporter.

The stakes are high for Steven Spielberg's big-budget Ready Player One, which unfurls in theaters everywhere Thursday in hopes of commanding a North American start of $45 million-$50 million by the time Easter Sunday wraps.

#Repost from @entertainmentweekly: #StevenSpielberg vowed not to include his own movies in @ReadyPlayerOne—but his crew did anyway. 😂 A covert campaign to sneak Spielbergia into the background of the film was taken on by the crew, often by visually referencing movies he produced rather than directed. 😱 #ReadyPlayerOne 📷: Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros.

A post shared by Ready Player One (@readyplayerone) on Mar 22, 2018 at 1:00pm PDT

Spielberg's movie — costing Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow an estimated $175 million to produce before marketing — also launches in numerous major foreign markets timed to its U.S. bow, including China. It graces the marquee only one week after another big-budget entry opened, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and two weeks after Tomb Raider came along. Both of those event films have disappointed, contributing to a tough March domestically. Spielberg's sci-fi adventure, which has been embraced by critics, hopes to reverse that trend.

From director Steven Spielberg comes #ReadyPlayerOne. Only in theaters March 29. Get tickets at the link in bio.

A post shared by Ready Player One (@readyplayerone) on Mar 21, 2018 at 3:05pm PDT

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 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.

At Ready Player One's Los Angeles premiere earlier this week, the filmmaker said it felt good to make a popcorn flick following period dramas The Post, opening in December 2017, and 2015's Bridge of Spies. (He didn't mention family film The BFG, a box-office disappointment released in summer 2016.) "It reminds me of the days when I did Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I had so much fun on this, it was like a vacation, even though it was incredibly hard work," Spielberg told THR at the L.A. screening, which followed the film's world premiere at SXSW.

Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.

Are going to see Ready Player One this week? Tell us your plans in the comments below.