Oscar-winning film director Steven Spielberg has masterminded a transformation of Birmingham’s historic Jewellery Quarter into a US city.
With shooting on the sci-fi thriller Ready Player One set to be concentrated into four days from Tuesday, September 6 until Saturday, September 10, technicians have been rapidly dressing the outdoor set.
While Deep Blue Productions has been asking people not to share pictures of filming on social media (that's going well) “until July 2018”, the film is still listed for UK release on Good Friday, March 30, 2018.
Sucks to be this guy though!
Pretty excited to see this now. I might even go and buy the book.
Let’s try again.
Lovely slow-mo video from the scene here.
Great work catching this.
While everyone has been getting excited about all the film shooting in Jewellery Quarter, we can reveal director Steven Spielberg’s team has created a secret set across town - under the M6 right next to Spaghetti Junction.
The secret set - which is the width of the motorway - is near Spaghetti Junction in the Witton area of Aston.
Great shot of the Warner Bros trucks here.
It makes it all seem even more surreal than it does already.
*something about a dystopia and Birmingham*
Seen enough of them jokes today.
This is gloriously moody, however.
Can’t decide if it’s a piece of mock-propaganda for the film or an actual advert for the area.
Apropos to not much, but this is pretty damn exciting.
Now 84, five-time Oscar winning composer John Williams (Star Wars) is set to score Ready Player One – he already has 50 Oscar nominations placing him second only to Walt Disney on the Academy Awards’ all-time list of greats.
In 2005, the American Film Institute declared Star Wars (1977) as the greatest American film score.
Not the type of car chase we usually report on, truth be told.
Thanks for the pictures though. We particularly love this one.
It’s clear that the filming is creating a real buzz around the city.
Everyone and their dog is heading down to JQ to get a glimpse of the filming.
Personally, I’ll only get excited if we get Simon Pegg in the city.
This looks like it’s going to be a big scene from the film.
Pretty exciting day so far.
I mean, every set needs them, right?
Not sure if deliberate or just leftover from the takeaway...
Can you guess which is which?
We’ll be honest, this made us chuckle pretty good.
One of our favourite pictures of Spielberg in Birmingham by some distance is this.
Great work by SNAPPERSK here.
We’ll keep it brief because we know it’s pretty exciting that the film set is here.
City road improvement schemes are already affecting everywhere from Paradise Circus to Spaghetti Junction.
After causing major disruption during every evening rush hour throughout August, roadworks at Spaghetti are now overrunning by two weeks when they should have ended on September 5.
Having a major Hollywood production using the roads around Livery Street, Lionel Street, Newhall Street, Ludgate Hill and Water Street could have a further impact on rush hour traffic.
Cool artwork for that virtual reality world.
Set to be an exciting day in the JQ with the filming.
Graham Young is wandering around with his camera so we can bring you the latest.
In 2044 many people are living in depressing stacks of home piled high on top of each other.
To escape this grim reality, they enter a virtual reality world called Oasis.
When the creator dies, the first to solve an Easter Egg puzzle will become the richest man in the world.
One of those bidding to win is Wade Watts (played by Tye Sheridan), whose Oasis avatar name is Parzival (his take on Percival, the Arthurian knight).
Stars of the film also include British actors Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg.
The film is based on the novel of the same name by Ohio-born Ernie Cline, a poetry slam champ who is listed as one of the screenwriters, too.
Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
