Steve Spielberg Thinks Ready Player One Could Come True

How much reliance on pop culture and nostalgia is too much? Thanks to a new featurette for the upcoming movie Ready Player One, that's a question that may have an answer.

In Ready Player One, people escape from the overcrowded world of the future into a virtual reality landscape filled with their favorite characters and moments from throughout pop culture. As a movie, that lets characters like the Iron Giant and Freddy Krueger battle it out, while players race against the Back to the Future DeLorean, while King Kong destroys a city skyline.

For just about anyone who grew up in the 1980s or 1990s, the endless possibilities sound like a dream come true. As the three new teasers for the film below show, though, the fictional world created by the movie and Ernest Cline novel may be closer to reality than you realize.

"I suddenly saw a future that Ernest Cline, the writer of the book, envisions. It wasn't that far away from what I think is going to happen someday," director Steven Spielberg says in one featurette. "There's a dystopian society and the fabric of our economy is crumbling. It's a good time to escape, so virtual reality will be a super drug."

It remains to be seen if that possible future will become a reality, but it's hard not to see the draw of such a thing. Who wouldn't want to escape a world that's falling apart for one filled with your favorite things, if only for a moment?

Of course, before any of that happens there's going to be some serious upgrades to current virtual reality technology. After all, as much fun as Job Simulator and Farpoint are, they're still not enough to convince you to leave your real life behind. In the meantime, you'll have to settle for seeing this insane VR world on the big screen when Ready Player One hits theaters on March 30.