Tron: Ares director and producer explain why Jeff Bridges is the only returning cast member
TRON: Ares, the highly anticipated third installment in the groundbreaking TRON franchise, is set to reach theatres on October 10th – and when it hits the big screen, fans of the franchise shouldn’t expect to see the likes of Garrett Hedlund’s Sam Flynn and Cillian Murphy’s Dillinger Jr. Those characters are sitting this one out, with Jeff Bridges being the only returning cast member from the previous films, reprising the role of Kevin Flynn. During an interview with SFX magazine, the film’s director and producer explained why only Bridges came back.
TRON: Ares was directed by Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales director Joachim Rønning and stars Jared Leto (Morbius), Cameron Monaghan (Gotham), Evan Peters (Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story), Greta Lee (Past Lives), Sarah Desjardins (Yellowjackets), Gillian Anderson (The X-Files), Hasan Minhaj (No Hard Feelings), Arturo Castro (Road House), Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim), and returning TRON star Bridges. Sean Bailey, Jeffrey Silver, Justin Springer, Jared Leto, Emma Ludbrook, and Steven Lisberger are the producers, with Russell Allen serving as executive producer.
Scripted by Jesse Wigutow and Jack Thorne, TRON: Ares tells the story of a highly sophisticated Program, Ares, who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first encounter with A.I. beings. Leto is playing Ares. As Deadline put it, Ares is “a fictional character who crosses over from the world of videogames to planet Earth.”
For twenty-eight years, director Steven Lisberger’s cult classic TRON was a standalone sci-fi adventure. Then in 2010 Joseph Kosinski took fans back to the world of TRON with the film TRON: Legacy – and since then things have been a bit messy. Kosinski wanted to make a third TRON film, to be called TRON: Ascension, but Disney cancelled the project when their movie Tomorrowland underperformed. Apparently the script for TRON: Ascension would have featured a character named Ares… and somehow the idea for that character has evolved into TRON: Ares. Kosinski had said that he had nearly given Leto a cameo in TRON: Legacy, in the End of Line club where Lisberger did make a cameo. The TRON: Ares rumblings started around 2017, but it didn’t go into production until 2024.
When asked about the shortage of returning cast members, Rønning explained, “These things are not only creative choices; sometimes actors don’t want to be in it anymore. There are different ways of looking at that, but I think the story fell into a place where we felt that we didn’t need the old characters to be front and center. We wanted to take this into a new direction while, at the same time, honoring the universe that we’re in.” Producer Justin Springer added, “We’re telling a story that’s 14 years later, and the most important thing is that we tell this new story in a way that works. To just throw cameos in, where it’s a parade of people that we love from this franchise, I just feel like it’s fan service that doesn’t serve the story. But we are definitely focused on ways to surprise the audience. If we don’t touch something in this movie, I always think about where else we can play. I produced the animated series [TRON: Uprising] and I worked on the theme park rides. There are all sorts of different ways to keep the mythology alive, whether that be in a film or a series or whatever, if we’re so lucky.“
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