Contrary to many reports, including one which I personally posted earlier today, Disney did let Steven Spielberg use
Star Wars in
Ready Player One. Spielberg recently clarified in an interview with
Fandango that they did acquire IP rights from all the studios.
It was difficult because we were so greedy about wanting so many cultural references throughout the 80s and 90s, but everybody cooperated, you know. We got, 20th Century Fox and Universal and Paramount and Sony and Disney. Everybody basically came on board to help us take their IPs and put some of their.. and allow us to create easter eggs from their own cultural phenomenons.
This is quite the opposite of what Spielberg said during the
Ready Player One press conference, where he rather blatantly said:
We couldn’t get any Star Wars rights ... They wouldn’t give up the Star Wars rights.
Though perhaps he simply misspoke.
Here's that article for you to judge for yourself.
Spielberg then went on to detail what
Star Wars easter eggs and references you may want to keep your eyes open for, once the film releases on the 29th of March, as well as explained why he opted to make references to the franchise subtle rather than overt.
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.
Are you excited for Ready Player One? Here's the interview in which Spielberg clarifies his comments: