Ready Player One may be the decade’s hottest sci-fi novel, which means a great deal of attention will be paid to the details of its forthcoming film adaptation. Even though it isn’t slated to open until December 2017, Steven Spielberg, who is directing the movie, has already begun fielding questions.

First up: Will the bounty of references to his own films make it into the movie? The answer: Nope.

In Ready Player One, written by Ernest Cline, a teenager enters a virtual-reality world in which participants solve puzzles based on pop-culture nostalgia in hopes of obtaining a fortune. Things turn deadly, but not before the main character encounters allusions to Spielberg’s catalog, including the “Indiana Jones” series, the failed “E.T.” Atari game and two movies he produced, “Back to the Future” and “The Goonies.”

“They reference so many ’80s movies. I’m doing the whole pop-culture thing. I’m just going to leave myself out of it,” Spielberg said while promoting “Bridge of Spies” in a
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