The One Big Reason We Finally Have a New Tron Movie

Photo: Leah Gallo/Disney

This weekend brings a rare return to the Tron universe. Audiences waited nearly 30 years for Tron: Legacy, and then another decade and a half for Tron: Ares, a new installment that reconnects more directly with the original 1982 film than the previous follow-up did.

Those gaps weren’t for lack of interest. Tron creator Steven Lisberger repeatedly pitched sequels, and Legacy director Joseph Kosinski once developed a continuation titled Tron: Ascension with Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund attached to return. But after costly science-fiction misfires such as John Carter and Tomorrowland, Disney scaled back on big-risk tentpoles and shelved plans for a direct third installment.

Kosinski later told Variety that the studio preferred to double down on established properties like Marvel and Star Wars — the latter having joined Disney’s roster when it acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4 billion.

So what revived Tron? According to screenwriter Jesse Wigutow, the project owes its existence largely to actor-producer Jared Leto.

Wigutow says the earliest versions of the new film already included a character named Ares, but it was Leto’s persistence that reshaped the project. He pushed to make Ares the centerpiece, asking to explore the character’s origins and arc: a figure who begins as an antagonist but discovers traces of humanity that alter his programming and purpose. “He wanted to understand this character and take him somewhere different,” Wigutow explains — and that determination ultimately became the engine behind the finished movie.

Wigutow describes Kosinski’s abandoned Tron: Ascension as a sprawling continuation of Legacy — a multi-threaded epic that would have furthered the stories of Sam Flynn, Quorra and other characters introduced in both the 2010 film and the 1982 original, culminating in a large-scale third act.

After Disney stepped away from a direct sequel to Legacy, Wigutow says there was a quiet period — until Leto and his producing partner Emma Ludbrook reached out with a fresh proposition: rebuild the world around Ares. From that one-page concept — a villain who experiences a moral awakening and wants to live like a human — the new film was born.

Some longtime Tron fans have questioned Leto’s fit in the franchise, even though he’s dabbled in genre fare before (from Suicide Squad to an upcoming turn as Skeletor in the live-action Masters of the Universe). At a recent press event, I asked Leto why he campaigned so long for another Tron movie.

“I’m a believer in the world of Tron,” he said. “The first film left a lasting impression on me when I saw it as a child — it opened my imagination to what creativity and technology could look like. It introduced me to Jeff Bridges and a style of storytelling that stuck with me. To me, Tron sits alongside Star Wars, Alien and Blade Runner as a great sci-fi franchise, and it’s an honor to help carry it forward.”

Although Tron: Ares largely bypasses much of the narrative built up by Tron: Legacy — with Sam Flynn and Quorra absent from this chapter — director Joachim Rønning and Leto’s film does include an important nod to the earlier sequel in its post-credits beat. For fans seeking full closure on Legacy’s unresolved threads, however, Wigutow suggests that more involvement from Leto and additional creative effort may be necessary to tie everything together.

Source: Polygon