Tron 3, also known as Tron: Ares, is officially moving forward after years of uncertainty. Jared Leto and Joachim Rønning are going to champion the project after they have been working for years to bring it to life. The Tron IP has technically never been a success. The original movie in 1982 was considered a box office flop, although the movie’s aesthetic and special effects kept it alive in people’s imaginations for decades to come. Tron: Legacy was generally not considered a success either when it came out in 2010. Though it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound Design, it did not make enough money to get the franchise off the ground.

Now, Disney is back for another bite at the apple with Tron: Ares. Though there were plans for a sequel to Tron: Legacy directed by Joseph Kosinski, Disney eventually scrapped the project. Garth Davis made another attempt in 2020, but could not get the movie to work. But now Jared Leto, who has been vying for the project for a while, has managed to get a hold of it with frequent collaborator Joachim Rønning. But as it’s looking more likely this version of Tron 3 will get made, some fans are worried these are the wrong people to make it.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

Tron 3: The Plot

     Walt Disney Pictures Releasing

Tron began in 1982 when game designer Kevin Flynn was digitized and uploaded into his computer. Flynn had been a program developer working for the company ENCOM with his friend Ed Dillinger. He and Dillinger disagreed on if the program Flynn created should be free to use, so Dillinger quietly stole Flynn’s open source software and sold it to ENCOM. Dillinger became the head of ENCOM and Flynn ended up running an arcade. When Flynn tries to hack into ENCOM, he discovers a Master Control Program that has become sentient and is stealing government and military data. When the MCP pulls Flynn into the computer world via experimental laser, he is forced to join forces with Tron, a security program, as well as several ENCOM engineers in order to bring down the MCP.

Tron: Legacy follows Flynn’s son Sam. When Flynn disappeared after becoming the CEO of ENCOM, Sam was made its de facto leader, being the company’s primary shareholder. Sam releases the company’s exclusive operating system for free on the internet and is arrested for trespassing. In his search for his missing father, Sam is digitized into the Grid and forced to complete a series of challenges in order to defeat a program named Clu who looks mysteriously like his father. Though Clu nearly kills Sam he is saved by Quorra, a special program that brings him to his father. Flynn explains he became trapped in the computer world and is trying to save a specific type of program called an ISO which may simulate consciousness. Eventually, Flynn sacrifices himself to defeat Clu and Sam is able to escape with Quorra into the real world.

Though nothing has been made public yet about the Tron: Ares project, it’s expected to follow Tron: Legacy to some degree. Meaning that in Tron: Ares it’s likely that Sam will have taken control of ENCOM and used its resources to explore the mysteries of integrating the computer world with the real world. Tron: Ares would also follow up on the storyline of Quorra, a computer program that was successfully made human. Or it’s possible it could do the same thing as Tron: Legacy and have a large amount of time pass in-universe between stories.

Tron 3: The Cast & Crew

     Warner Bros. Discovery

At the moment, Joachim Rønning and Jared Leto are the only two people listed to work on the film, with Jesse Wigutow as a screenplay writer. Rønning will direct and Leto will obviously star. Joachim Rønning is most famous for his box office flop Pirates of the Caribbean 5: Dead Men Tell No Tales. But he also directed Maleficent and co-directed Kon-Tiki and worked on the Marco Polo television series.

Jared Leto is unfortunately most recently known for his performance in the Sony Spider-Man spin-off Morbius, as well as his unpopular Joker character in the DC universe. But we should remember that the actor starred in legendary films like Requiem for a Dream and Dallas Buyers Club. Leto also managed a capable performance in Blade Runner: 2049, another sci-fi movie that revolves around a large corporation and poses existential questions to the audience.

Many sci-fi movie fans are groaning at Tron 3 moving forward under the wing of these two filmmakers, but both of them have excellent movies on their resumés. They clearly have the skill to make powerful films. And there isn’t a soul in Hollywood that hasn’t done a project they regret. Tron 3 may be the movie where they finally turn it around.

Release Date

     IMDb

The IMDb page for Tron: Ares says its expected release date is December 19, 2025.