Steven Spielberg's 'Ready Player One' made him 'feel like a kid again'
The legendary director dishes on creating a virtual world!
New York -- Steven Spielberg's new futuristic sci-fi movie "Ready Player One," about young people fighting for control of a worldwide virtual reality experience called The Oasis, opens in theaters today.
The movie, based on the popular book of the same name, is a return to a genre that Spielberg helped pioneer, which is why he says it made him nostalgic.
"I felt like I was a kid again making movies, actually the kind of movies I used to make in the '80s," he told ABC News. "I felt I was, not imitating that, but I felt like I was in that world again."
![](https://s.abcnews.com/images/Entertainment/steven-spielberg-ap-mem-180329_hpMain.jpg)
Furthermore, the acclaimed director said this movie gave him a very different experience than what he's used to when making blockbuster films.
"I felt like I was making this movie, not from behind the camera where I make a lot of my historical dramas, but I was making this movie in the audience with the audience as my collaborators, telling a story for the audience," Spielberg said.
In the world of "Ready Player One," reality is grim. But everyone can feel like they are escaping by entering The Oasis, a virtual reality program that lets users do anything and be anyone they want.
When The Oasis' inventor dies, he leaves behind a challenge: Whoever solves the puzzles he's embedded in the program will inherit it.
![](https://s.abcnews.com/images/Entertainment/tye-sheridan-ready-player-one-ht-mem-180329_hpMain.jpg)
When the hero, Wade, played by Tye Sheridan, joins the quest, he gets way more than he bargained for.
Spielberg says filming a movie set in a VR program allowed him to stage incredible scenes, but there were pros and cons. Take car chases, for example.
"The virtual world car chase was a heck of a lot safer than if I had tried to create those exact shots with those exact stunts in the real world," said Spielberg. "But I think it would probably be a little less expensive shooting a real car chase...It cost more to do that digitally."
"Ready Player One" is out in theaters nationwide today.