Ready Player One was released in 2018, and of all its many cameos, Chucky was undoubtedly the best. Based on the hit 2011 novel of the same name by Ernest Cline, the book was adapted into a blockbuster by Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg. The novel centers on a dystopian future where the majority of people escape into an Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation - OASIS for short - to avoid the bleakness of the real world.
When the reclusive billionaire creator of the OASIS dies he triggers a literal Easter Egg hunt within his creation; a Willy Wonka-style adventure through the OASIS where the prize is his fortune and ownership of the entire simulation itself. Young pop-culture enthusiast Wade Watts (Ty Sheridan) ends up being one of the front runners in the ensuing competition, using his avatar Parzival to take on the mighty corporation Innovative Online Industries and their army of indentured servants. Although the film strays from the Ready Player One novel at times, it was by-and-large a faithful adaptation.
What was unique about the Ready Player One book was its ability for Cline to gleefully reference all manner of pop culture icons as playable and non-playable avatars within the sprawling, highly-populated OASIS. What's even more impressive is that Spielberg was able to cover a number of different Intellectual Property rights in order to insert all of these characters into the same movie - even if it ended up taking him eight years.
From Freddy Krueger to Star Trek, the sheer amount of properties and characters referenced is staggering. Spielberg’s producing partner, Kristie Macosko Krieger, said in an interview with the LA Times that the director was able to get 80% of his desired wish list for characters to include in the movie, which is not bad innings - and certainly only made possible because of Spielberg's pedigree. Luckily for fans, one of those characters was horror icon Chucky of the Child's Play franchise. Original voice actor Brad Dourif was even brought back to provide his maniacal laughter.
The serial-killing doll has experienced a resurgence of late, receiving a remake - which replaced Dourif with Mark Hamill - and an upcoming TV show on SyFy from the original creators of the franchise. In Ready Player One, a scene where our heroes are in a pitched battle with IOI's forces (known as 'Sixers') shows the main character's best friend Aetch (Lena Waithe) throw him a weapon to be used in the game. Within the OASIS, we see that weapon is Chucky himself, used as a wind-up murderous grenade of sorts, unleashed to take on a crowd of Sixers. The cameo is brief, but a whole lot of fun owing to the cult villain's random appearance.
Thanks to the movie making a decent profit and performing well in China, there's high potential for seeing a sequel to Ready Player One. Ernest Cline is writing a sequel to his novel and female lead Olivia Cooke is signed on for multiple sequels so who knows? Fans might be seeing Parzival and Chucky together again sooner than they think.