Donald DeLine is an American producer most known for his work on Pretty Woman, The Italian Job, and Body of Lies. His recent producer credit is on Ready Player One, which will premiere in theaters on March 29, 2018.
Screen Rant got a chance to talk to producer Donald DeLine on press day, where we discussed what his initial thoughts were on the book, the amount of work that went into developing the special effects, and how much fun it was to watch his favorite pop culture references come to life onscreen.
When you read the book what were some of your initial thoughts? Because I never read the book because I wanted to make sure that I didn’t have a preconceived notice of seeing the film.
Donald DeLine: That’s really interesting. Good. I’m glad you saw it that way. So, films don’t work for you not knowing anything about the story.
It’s literally like ten year old me picking up all my toys and playing with them.
Donald DeLine: Yes! That’s how I felt reading the book. The book blew my mind because it was like, I came of age during this time period and maybe a little older even. So, let’s say during the ‘80s I was in my 20s as opposed to being a teenager. But it blew my mind because it was a trip through my past and I loved it for all of those reasons, for all of the cultural touch points that it hit. But for me, honestly, I’m not like the guy who is a gamer, so I connected to it because of the characters and the whole emotional journey, so Wade’s journey, the friendship between the High Five, all of it really hooked me in more than anything. And so, I was incredibly excited about it. I thought, “I don’t know how you do this. It’s so ambitious and it’s so huge.” So, I knew it was going to be incredibly challenging, but I knew there was a movie in it.
It’s interesting you say that because there are so many IPs in this. I feel like you don’t get all of these rights if you don’t have Steven Spielberg directing the film.
Donald DeLine: 100%. It would have been a very different story if we didn’t have Steven directing the film and had another director, it most likely would have gotten a fraction of what we got. But because of Steven, his stature in the business and who he is as a filmmaker and an icon and his relationships with all of these people who are referenced in this movie, studios and filmmakers were extremely friendly to us.
Well, I mean going over obviously with your filmography and Zak’s done a lot of great work on things I loved and Steven raised almost all of us on his films. With this being pop culture nostalgia, what are some of the touchstones for you that were like that is a touch that I really liked there based off of some of the stuff you’ve seen from past films and stuff like that?
Donald DeLine: Are you talking about in the book or in the movie version?
Both!
Donald DeLine: Ah. Well, some stuff I’m not going to talk about in the movie version because I don’t want to give spoilers.
Oh, let me preface this too. Anything that is a spoiler I won’t put out until after the movie anyway because I don’t want to spoil it for people.
Donald DeLine: Oh. Right on! Right on! Okay. Well, for me honestly, it was a combination of everything because it was music, cars, movies, books. I mean, honestly, it was just kind of overwhelming. It’s kind of hard for me to pick out something specifically when I see the movie. I have all of my favorite things. The Iron Giant slays me. The Iron Giant is huge to me, so that resonates with me always. Gundam was a huge thing for me. [laughs]
There was an audible gasp that came out of my body. Cause I knew that Gundam was in the movie because I had heard, but I was like [gasps]. When you see it for the first time, I had never seen it on the big screen before, so I was amazed.
Donald DeLine: Wasn’t that amazing?
So cool.
Donald DeLine: So, I’m allowed to talk about the second challenge then?
Yeah. I mean, anything that has to do with story elements I’m not going to run until after the movie comes out.
Donald DeLine: Yeah. Cause The Shining obviously for me is just a mindblower. It has such a place in my psyche and I remember seeing the movie the first time and what it meant to me and how it affected me and I think what he has done with that sequence is something that no one has seen before. Every time I see it, it blows my mind.
It blew my mind too because I don’t think anyone knew that was coming. And, as soon as you get there, you are like, “Oh my gosh.” It’s exactly a recreation. Why was the choice The Shining because I know in the book that it’s War Games. What was the choice for The Shining specifically?
Donald DeLine: Here’s the thing. I think this is the overall thing not specific to that is that I think one of the things that I really think Steven was smart to do this, he wanted the movie to, of course, honor the book and be an adaptation of the book in all ways, but he wanted to offer something new to the viewer. So, coming to it as a movie if you’ve read the book, there are these amazing discoveries that you will make and new adventures that you will have and I think that’s fantastic. And I think for that reason that is part of it. Also, in certain instances, there are things in the book as you know reading a book is different than visually experiencing something in a movie theatre. So, I think there was also a desire about how do we make everything as exciting and as cinematic as possible.
One of my best friends, this is his favorite book of all time, so he asked me yesterday what I think about the movie. I told him what I thought, but I won’t tell him elements of the film. But then, cause he knows the book, so he was asking if certain things were in it and I was like no. No. But then I don’t want to ruin it for him because this experience you’re going to get is a lot different from the experience you got reading the book.
Donald DeLine: That’s really cool and I hope that he appreciated that. You know what I mean? And I’m very curious to hear what he thinks about the movie being a superfan of the book.
So when you sit down and you read this book and you’re like, “Alright. We’re going to make this into a film.” What are some of the initial challenges that immediately pop out at you?
Donald DeLine: The initial challenge with this was because this story is so sweeping, so jam packed, and so dense and it’s very very complex because it involves something that has very multi layered clues and equations that need to be solved. How do you take that and distill that down into a three act structure that sustains 2 hours? You don’t have 11 hours to read the book. So, that is number one a big challenge without losing the heart and soul of the piece, which is Wade and the High Five and what their journey is and always staying emotionally connected to these characters. That’s what you have to do.
Something that has been a trend in film, like with the Lord of the Rings franchise for example and The Hobbit more specifically, is that they took that book and broke it up into three movies. Was there ever a thought about breaking each one of these quests for the keys into its own separate film or was it always going to be one film?
Donald DeLine: It was always going to be one film. That’s a very interesting question and I think the answer is that it wasn’t discussed in any meeting that I was ever in. And I think that it would be less satisfying because you do not, I don’t think just winning one of the clues would had have enough fulfilling moment.
Got you. Obviously, we’ve talked about this having a ton of IP in here. Was there one specifically where when you see it on screen in your heart you went, “Yes.”? Besides Iron Giant?
Donald DeLine: Beside the Iron Giant and Gundam? For me? Of course! When I see the Delorean, every time it gives me joy. It’s just like that to me is, talk about a touchstone for my youth. Back to the Future? Forget about it. Michael J. Fox. Come on!
I mean, cause I saw the Ninja Turtles and I flipped.
Donald DeLine: Oh yeah! By the way, Hello Kitty, did you see Hello Kitty?
Yes. I saw. It’s on her mic, right?
Donald DeLine: Hello Kitty appears several times.
What?
Donald DeLine: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Next time you see it walk into Halliday’s journals, you can find Hello Kitty. You can find Hello Kitty in the nightclub. You can find Hello Kitty out in the battlefield.
Really? See? This is one of those movies where once it does come out on Blu-ray, every frame you’re going to pause.
Donald DeLine: I’m telling you. I’ve seen the movie many times. Every time I see the movie, I’m like, “What?” I catch something new. Steven said something brilliant in Austin. He was like, “If you look out the side windows, you’ll see all kinds of insane stuff going on. But if you look straight through the windshield, you’re always going to find the story.”
That’s amazing and that’s a great quote by the way.
Donald DeLine: Isn’t it? And I was like, “Woah. That is amazing.”
Obviously this is a Warner Bros. film and there’s tons of Warner Bros. superheroes in it like Superman, Batman, Harley Quinn, the Joker. Now, I know you were a producer on Green Lantern back when. Warner Bros. is working on another Green Lantern film. In your opinion, because Green Lantern is a very hard character to execute, so what does it take to get that character up and running the way Warner Bros. would like it to be?
Donald DeLine: You know what? I don’t know anything about the new attempt at the Green Lantern, so I just, I don’t know.
It’s a tough one.
Donald DeLine: You know what I mean? Yeah. I’ve had no conversations about what they would like to do. I have my own thoughts about it, so maybe I’ll find time to go sit down with them and say here’s what I think you should be doing. There were reasons why the first one went the way that it did and there’s giant room for improvement on that.
Sure. Also, The Italian Job is one of my most, I love that movie.
Donald DeLine: Dude. Thank you. I was, it was one of the funnest experiences of my producing career.
Was it? Good. Now there’s rumors about this new Italian Job. Is that a thing you are involved in?
Donald DeLine: We actually had a version a couple of years ago that Mark and Charlize and everyone was interested in doing together. That and for different reasons and people having different schedules that went in different directions kind of went by the wayside. We are actually right now discussing it as a series. So, we would take one heist over ten episodes. Yeah. And we can go all over the world. You can have the Italian Job. You can have the Brazilian Job. You could have the Moscow Job. So, that’s what we’re talking about right now.
That’s so cool. Now back to this film because this film is stunning. What were some of the challenges you thought you were going to face when you had to do the VR? Because there’s not VR stuff. Well, I guess it’s VR stuff because it’s the shooting, right? I mean, not the shooting but the goggles they had to put on and were on the stage.
Donald DeLine: Yeah. Look. Steven says that this is the most complicated movie that technically that he’s ever done. So, thank God we got him as the director because there are not a lot of filmmakers that would have the talent and the expertise and the know how to execute something like this. And it was a lot of technology that had been developed and used that hadn’t been used before to make this movie. So, you had the actors in the motion capture stage in their capture suits and the cameras on their face doing all of their stuff as their avatars. Right? In the OASIS. So, Steven would shoot that. Then he would go into another stage where he would have the sets, which were all created 3D digitally, and he could put on a VR headset, stand there, and look 360 at the set so he could then shoot inside that digital set with another camera that he went around and did all of his shots to put his actors inside of that. So, it was an incredibly complicated thing to do.
Does that make it easier or harder with lighting and stuff like that since you’re in a digital set and can control the environment?
Donald DeLine: You can control the environment but, of course, you still have to light it and Janusz Kaminski, because you know the real world is shot on film and the digital world is digital. So, Janusz had to create a look in the digital world and he’s involved in that with ILM and all of those guys and how the lighting should look and what that is and how you transition from the real world into the digital world. It was very complicated.
Wow. So, in your opinion, what was the most challenging scene for you guys to do?
Donald DeLine: Oh, that’s very interesting. The most challenging. God. They are honestly so complex. The set pieces are so complex. I can’t tell you that one was more challenging an other, but the final battle is maybe the most complex of all.
I mean, you can almost tell because there’s so much going on.
Donald DeLine: Exactly. And you have to understand that every single frame and every character and every piece of the environment and every element in the environment be it smoke or snow or fire or water or whatever had to be rendered and approved step by step and it took months and months and months and months. And Steven would watch every single shot, give notes on it, and it would go back for work, come back again. That process went on for a very long time.
That’s crazy. So, let’s just say that you are at home. You put on your goggles and go into the OASIS. Who is your avatar?
Donald DeLine: [laughs] Who is my avatar? That’s a really good question. I think I would be more like Wade, where my avatar is a more improved version of myself as opposed to an entirely different persona. But that’s a really good question cause I actually haven’t really thought about that. Do you know who yours would be?
I go back and forth after watching this. So, I like Michael Knight from Knight Rider. David Hasselhoff..[laughs] and then I was thinking maybe a Power Ranger like the Red Ranger or something. Was there any IPs, because I was talking to Ernest and he was telling me that they tried really hard to get Ultraman in the film…
Donald DeLine: Yeah, we did.
Was there any that you had your heart set on that was maybe close, but couldn’t quite get it in on time to make that deal?
Donald DeLine: No. I mean, I felt actually that we did such an amazing job at getting as much as we got that I was like, beggars can’t be choosers, man! It was like I didn’t think we were going to get 60% of what we got, so yes.
It’s crazy to me because it was almost like had I been in a dream and my childhood was all in one movie together.
Donald DeLine: Isn’t that amazing?
I would have thought that was impossible until Steven Spielberg did it. Because it is reminiscent to me of Roger Rabbit. I had never seen anything like that until Roger Rabbit.
Donald DeLine: Exactly. When I went to see the movie for the first time and saw it in Steven’s screening room, I literally, my mind was blown because this is an experience I had never had before in a theatre. That was the way I had felt. I felt that way with Roger Rabbit like you said. I felt that way when I saw Avatar. I felt that way when I saw this movie. I was like this is different than anything else. By the way, movies today it’s like you have to have a reason to leave home and go to the theatre. This is one of those movies people have to understand that you must see it in the theatre. And did you see it in 3D or did you see it in 2-D?
I saw it in 2-D.
Donald DeLine: Well, 2-D is amazing, but I have to tell you that 3D blows your mind in this too.
Oh, I got to see this like three more times.
Donald DeLine: You need to see it in 3D IMAX because the 3D also, Steven did it where the 3D in the OASIS is super intense and it’s different when you are in the real world, so it’s immersive in that way where you feel that viscerally.
Now you talked just a second ago about the technology. Were you guys creating the technology as you were shooting the film?
Donald DeLine: Well, they were creating the tech all during the prep for the movie. A special camera for him to shoot in the VR space and all that stuff.
That’s amazing.
Donald DeLine: Oh, yeah! Special rigs. Oh, yeah!
Have you ever been in a process like this where it’s live action and CG all in the…?
Donald DeLine: I mean, I have to some degree with movies that I’ve done with special effects, but never with this process and never with this degree of complexity. I don’t know if anyone has.
MORE: Olivia Cooke Ready Player One Interview
Key Release Dates
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Ready Player One
Release Date:2018-03-29
