Why TRON 3 Won’t Be The Sequel Fans Want

Although it’s currently moving forward at Disney, TRON 3 probably won’t be the sequel fans have been waiting for. The Mouse House was in a very different place than it is today when it released the original Tron in 1982. From the late ’70s to early ’80s and inspired by the success of movies like Star Wars and, to a lesser degree, Raiders of the Lost Ark around that time, the company began to develop genre films targeting a somewhat older audience, as opposed to their typical demographic of children and their parents. This resulted in the production of sci-fi adventures like The Black Hole and Tron, as well as the fantasy-horror movies The Watcher in the Woods and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

All of the aforementioned films disappointed at the box office, yet many have gone on to find a cult following in the years since their release. In the case of Steve Lisberger’s Tron, the movie was applauded upon arrival for its then-groundbreaking mix of live-action footage with both backlit animation and CGI, and its story (in which a computer programmer becomes trapped within a computerized world of his own design) served as the basis for multiple video game spinoffs made in the ’80s and ’00s. Eventually, Disney produced a movie sequel in 2010 titled TRON: Legacy, with Jeff Bridges reprising his role from Lisberger’s film as the programmer Kevin Flynn, and Garrett Hedlund starring as his now-grown son, Sam.

By no means a bomb, TRON: Legacy wasn’t the runaway success Disney had hoped for either, even with the benefit of being made for 3D on the heels of Avatar in 2009. With a worldwide gross of $400 million against a $170 production budget, Legacy nevertheless did well enough to keep TRON 3 moving forward thereafter, if slower than anticipated. However, that version of the project was was ultimately canceled in 2015, only for reports of a TRON reboot starring Jared Leto to emerge two years later. It’s now being said the Leto film is closer to a sequel than a hard reset, but that doesn’t mean it’s a true continuation of Legacy, either.

Disney’s Original TRON 3 Plan Explained

In its original form, TRON 3 was designed to pick up more or less in real-time after the events of Legacy. As Legacy director Joseph Kosinski explained to Collider in 2017, the sequel was tentatively titled TRON: Ascension and would’ve been what he called an “invasion movie,” with programs from The Grid ascending to the real-world, even as flesh and blood characters continue to journey to the digital frontier and back again. The idea was to build on the final moments of Legacy, in which the digital warrior and “isomorphic algorithm” Quorra (Olivia Wilde) follows Sam back into the real-world, making her the first “digital-human hybrid,” as Kosinski described it. Because of this, Ascension would’ve likely focused more on Quorra than Sam as she continues to adjust to life in the real-world and finds herself wondering where she truly belongs.

After spending a few years getting the Ascension script into shape, Disney’s intention was to begin production on the film in 2015, with Kosinski once again directing. But before that could happen, their big-budget sci-fi adventure Tomorrowland bombed at the box office that same year, prompting the studio to pause and reassess their plans for the future. By that point, of course, the MCU was going strong, Star Wars was about to relaunch under their supervision, and the House of Mouse had stumbled upon a lucrative formula for remaking their animated classics in live-action and/or CGI. So, rather than taking a risk on yet another uncertain bet after years of releasing failed (and expensive) would-be franchise starters like John Carter and The Lone Ranger, Disney elected to shelve the next TRON installment and continue focusing on expanding its acquired brands and IPs instead.

Jared Leto’s TRON Movie Isn’t A Legacy Sequel

Jump to the present and TRON 3 is back in development, albeit in the different form. As mentioned, the Leto-led film is presently described as being a standalone sequel, as opposed to being a reboot as initially reported. At the same time, it’s clear this won’t really be a direct continuation of Legacy: in addition to featuring a different star, director (Garth Davis), and writer (Jesse Wigutow) than that movie did, it doesn’t make a whole lot of business-sense for Disney to green-light a threequel like Ascension at this stage. As much as the TRON fanbase loves the franchise’s ideas about technology and the relationship between creators and their creations, Legacy‘s visuals and exhilarating Daft Punk score left a far stronger impression on the moviegoing masses than its plot or characters did. If the prospect of continuing the film’s story was a shaky one five years ago, it would be all the riskier now, at a point where Legacy‘s cultural footprint has only further faded.

For that reason, TRON 3 will mostly likely be crafted to remain accessible to newcomers, as well as those who only really remember the broader strokes of what happened in Legacy. This isn’t necessarily anything unusual for the franchise, either: since the original Tron was only ever a cult film, the second movie was designed to serve as an entrance point to those who’d never seen it (something that allowed it to perform much better at the box office than another sequel to an ’80s cult sci-fi classic, Blade Runner 2049, seven years later). At the same time, it’s lone been reported Leto will star in TRON 3 as Ares, a character who was originally set to be introduced in Ascension. If so, there’s hope yet the movie will work as both a conclusion to Legacy‘s story and a fresh beginning for the property at large.

How Leto’s TRON Can Properly End Legacy’s Story

Originally, when responding to the news of TRON 3 moving forward with Davis directing, Leto referred to the film as TRON: Ares on his social media channels, only to quickly delete the message and re-publish it without the title. Regardless of whether that’s just a working title or the official one, it suggests the Oscar-winner is, in fact, playing the eponymous role in TRON 3. Ares, of course, is the name of the Greek god of war, so this could be a nod to the potentially digital character’s ruthless nature in the movie. If he is a program, he might even be interested in leading the citizens of The Grid in an invasion of the real-world, similar to what Clu tried to do in Legacy. That would then allow TRON 3 to carry over the “invasion movie” elements that Kosinski had planned to explore in Ascension, but as seen from the POV of a digital being born in The Grid, as opposed to a flesh-and-blood person (a la Kevin and Sam).

Building on that, it’s plausible TRON 3 will position Quorra as being the Athena (Ares’ sister and the goddess of intelligence and warfare in Greek mythology) to Leto’s character, allowing the film to carryover her thread from Legacy and hopefully bring it to a satisfying conclusion. (Heck, for all we know, they may end up being siblings in a more literal sense.) There ought to be room for Sam in the equation there too, seeing as he planned to retake control of ENCOM at the end of Legacy and has presumably been living with Quorra since she made her way over into the real-world all those years ago. Point being, it wouldn’t be difficult for TRON 3 to re-introduce the TRON universe from the perspective of a brand-new character while at the same time progressing the storyline from the previous movies. It might not be a proper followup like Ascension, but it would at least give Legacy fans some closure.