
Turns out the initial report that mentioned director Steven Spielberg being unable to secure the proper rights from Disney to include Star Wars references in his new film Ready Player One was incorrect. Spielberg himself clears up the confusion in the interview segment provided below.
A film of this nature without any Star Wars references would just not have felt right!
EXCLUSIVE: Contrary to reports spreading now, Disney did let Steven Spielberg use #StarWars in #ReadyPlayerOne. Here, Spielberg explains to me how they snagged IP rights from all the studios and what STAR WARS Easter Eggs to look for in the new film, in theaters 3/29 pic.twitter.com/LslVQP1iCv
— ErikDavis (@ErikDavis) March 16, 2018
So if you look very carefully you’ll see an R2-D2 somewhere, you’ll see an X-Wing somewhere. But we didn’t want to use the main cultural icons from any of the Disney Star Wars films because those are ongoing. That’s really part of our contemporary world right now, and even though it began in the 80s, it is so much a part of our real life today in the 21st century. So we asked for some of the smaller items and Disney gave us everything we asked for.