Tron 3 is like The Flash or Avatar 2. You’ve been hearing about it for so long, it’s almost comical. But, much like Avatar 2 last year and The Flash this year, it seems Tron 3 may actually be happening. Again.
Deadline reports that Disney has a new director on the project, now called Tron: Ares, and it’s Joachim Rønning, who made Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. He’s still got Jared Leto attached and filming could start this August in Vancouver. The current script is by Jesse Wigutow.
Now, if you’re been following the saga of Tron, you know we’ve been here before. Disney and various teams have been trying to get a third Tron off the ground since months before Tron: Legacy was even released way back in 2010. But the film was only a moderate hit (grossing over $US400 ($555) million worldwide), and in the years since, Disney bought Marvel, Lucasfilm, and others, so it had plenty of other big sci-fi franchises on deck.
“I had the whole movie storyboarded and written [in 2015],” Legacy director Joseph Koskinsi said last year. “I was really excited because it was inverting the idea: it was all that stuff coming into our world, and it was about the blending of the two. But it was a different Disney by 2015. When I made Tron: Legacy, they didn’t own Marvel; they didn’t own Star Wars. We were the play for fantasy and science fiction. And once you’ve got those other things under your umbrella, it makes sense that you’re going to put your money into a known property and not the weird art student with black fingernails in the corner — that was Tron. And that’s ok.”
What makes this time any different? We aren’t quite sure. One small consideration may be that Disney is more invested in Tron in its theme parks, with a major Tron ride coming to Walt Disney World in Florida later this year. But almost everyone involved, from Jared Leto to people involved with the music and more, have always believed a third Tron would happen eventually. Now, it might.