SAN DIEGO -- Steven Spielberg has debuted footage of his latest film "Ready Player One." The director released a teaser trailer of his action-packed film Saturday at San Diego Comic-Con.

The 6,500-person crowd gave the director a standing ovation and cheered heartily when the first images from the dystopian future world came up on screen, and even more so when The Iron Giant popped up.

Author Ernest Cline said he learned how to be a storyteller because of Spielberg. And Spielberg said he liked the idea of doing a flash forward and flash back in the film, although he said that when he first read the book, he initially thought they would need a younger director.

Cline told Variety that he never envisioned his book to be adapted for the silver screen.

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"I had started out as a screenwriter, and had been kinda frustrated by that, and that's what made me try being a novelist, so when I wrote 'Ready Player One,' I kind of assumed it would never be a movie," he said. "And that was freeing to me, to let my imagination just run wild."

He continued, "I knew some of the stuff would never get cleared, which is what's crazy about Steven Spielberg becoming the director, I don't think anybody else could have gotten all the pop culture references cleared that we got to be in the movie."

"Ready Player One" hits theaters in March 2018.