“Tron” fandom is small, but devoted and intense. Nearly 30 years after the 1982 “Tron” movie—a technical marvel for its time—the belated sequel from director Joseph Kosinski, “Tron: Legacy,” was released, featuring a classic soundtrack from Daft Punk, CGI-de-aging and dozens of other cutting edge VFX. Fans loved this new version, but the expensive film mostly flopped at the box-office, leaving ‘Legacy’ to live on as yet another cult film in the “Tron” franchise history. However, there is recent movement on the horizon about a potential third trip into the ‘Tron’ universe.
The news is two-pronged and begins with a Disney Insider report that says a new “Tron” movie with Jared Leto attached as the lead, is still in the works with a director search underway. Disney Insider also says the project is expected to be more of a “Tron” sequel rather than a reboot, and the cast from “Tron: Legacy” could return. There’s been a lot of Internet/Twitter chatter, doubting the veracity of the report, but The Playlist can independently confirm a “Tron” project was being shopped to potential directors this spring with Jared Leto still attached to the project.
Some of the online confusion on the sourcing appears to be a recent episode of the Light the Fuse podcast, where Mitchell Leib, the President of Music & Soundtracks at Disney, spoke about working with Daft Punk on “Tron: Legacy” and how he has already had early talks with the group about returning for a third film in the franchise. None of the intel in Disney Insider’s report comes from it, but there are lots of good supporting materials in the interview.
Leib spoke about meeting Daft Punk’s manager for preliminary discussions about a third “Tron” feature. “We’re looking at making a ‘Tron 3,’” Leib revealed. “We’ve got a great script. A really phenomenal script that we’re very excited about. Whereas the timing wasn’t right to do it years ago, I think we feel the timing is right, now. We learned a lot of lessons from [‘Tron: Legacy’].”
He added, “The right and first thing to do is to bring Daft Punk back and see if they want to [return]…We don’t even know who will be directing yet. We’re hopeful that Joe Kosinski will come back and do another one…A lot of things gotta fall into the right places…”
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News of Leto’s involvement with ‘Tron’ dates back to 2017, so it appears that he’s still attached to whatever new version of this screenplay has been written (it remains unclear who wrote this version). Additionally, there was, at one point, new that Disney+ had plans to move ahead with a “Tron” series for the streaming service, led by filmmaker John Ridley. Unfortunately, that was canceled before production could begin.
Either way, a new “Tron” film is being developed in one way or another, but it’s clear while many are hoping Kosinski will return, it’s obvious, the producers are looking at other options as well. A ‘Tron 3’ with Daft Punk scoring and Jared Leto in the lead should definitely get the ‘Tron’ cult caravan dancing with anticipation until more news arrives.