As the Walt Disney Studios’ TRON: Ares enters theaters Friday, Disney invites audiences to experience the next chapter in one of its most visually daring and philosophically rich franchises.
Directed by Joachim Rønning (Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil), this new installment in the TRON saga is a bold evolution of the digital universe first imagined in 1982, and revisited in 2010 with Tron: Legacy.
TRON: Ares introduces Ares (Jared Leto), a highly sophisticated Program who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first encounter with A.I. (artificial intelligence) beings.
In the process, Ares encounters questions of identity, humanity, and purpose.
“For me, it’s the human factor and it’s about Ares and his journey and discovering what it means and what it takes to be human,” Rønning explained. “That’s the heart of the film.”
The film features an all-star cast, including Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Cameron Monaghan and Gillian Anderson.
Academy Award® winner Jeff Bridges returns in his iconic role as Kevin Flynn.
A Franchise Reborn
TRON: Ares came at the ideal time to be relevant to audiences.
“What a perfect time for the TRON world to be revisited,” Bridges said at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event last year. “Or, I should say, for the digital world to visit us, because our plot does involve an A.I. program coming into the real world.”
Bridges added, “I think [audiences will] be surprised. I love it when you go to a movie with high expectations, and then those are exceeded — when the filmmakers have done something kind of magical. I’m hoping that’ll be the case with our film.”
Lee, who plays Eve Kim, echoed that excitement at D23: “The scope and the scale of everything — it’s this historic world. The franchise is over 40 years old, so to step into that and to have that as your playground, it’s so exciting. It’s so fun.”
The TRON franchise has always stood at the intersection of storytelling and technological innovation. With TRON: Ares, Disney continues to push cinematic boundaries while still honoring the legacy of its iconic franchise.
“You have to find that line,” Rønning said. “You have to keep the soul of [the franchise] intact and bring back some of the beloved things in the previous films. And then at the same time, you also need to elevate it. You have to bring it to the next chapter. And that’s what we did.”
Transcendent Technology
True to its roots, TRON: Ares is a technological marvel. Rønning and his team embraced a hybrid approach, blending practical effects with cutting-edge digital artistry.
Working with Disney made that possible for Rønning, who has previously directed three other films with the studio.
“You can actually go out and do this [when] you have some of the best crew, film crews, and people in the industry and the designers and the technical crews, that they can make it happen,” he says.
Rønning noted that Disney was able to facilitate world-class film crews to help bring his vision to life. One particular sequence that benefited from that is a pulse-pounding lightcycle chase through the streets of Vancouver, where Programs from the Grid invade the human world.
“We shut down downtown Vancouver for six weeks of nights, and then we built the real lightcycles and other vehicles… I think you can really feel it in the film that we went to that extent to try and do as much of it as possible for real,” Rønning said.
The film also marks a milestone collaboration with Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the legendary visual effects house.
“Working with ILM is a lifelong dream,” Rønning shared. “It was such a privilege to have that expertise in our film and to blend the practical effects with the CG [computer generated] effects… There’s still 2,000 VFX shots in the film. So, it’s very massive, but it’s all about the story.”
One of the film’s most innovative techniques involves motion-controlled robotic camera arms used to shoot scenes on the Grid — the iconic game simulation environment created by Bridges’ character inside a computer mainframe that has evolved over the course of the franchise into an expansive virtual universe.
“I like the idea of like a computer filming Ares, who is also a program,” Rønning explained. “So, I think you can feel that somehow in the movie that everything on the grid is very controlled, very precise.”
Soundscapes of the Grid
Music has always been integral to the TRON experience, and TRON: Ares continues that tradition with a score crafted by Oscar® winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross from Nine Inch Nails.
“I think that they are two of the best movie composers of our time,” Rønning said. “They did this under the Nine Inch Nails banner. It’s their band, so I was very respectful of that… I also wanted to have this be their voice. That was very important for me.”
The collaboration proved to be both artistically rich and personally rewarding. “They just elevate every scene they touch,” Rønning added. “It was a great collaboration.”
A Theater-First Experience
TRON: Ares is unapologetically designed for the big screen.
“Cinema is my art form,” Rønning affirmed. “And I think why I keep coming back to these big movies is that they… have a real chance of seeing the insides of a theater. Because that’s where I want my films to be seen.”
He continued, “When it comes to TRON, it’s such a cinematic universe and it lends itself to the big screen, and the bigger the better. And the sound and the music and all of that comes together. Also, just the sheer technical quality of it is something that belongs on the big screen. It’s very, very immersive.”
Experience TRON at Disney Parks
Fans of the TRON franchise can immerse themselves in the digital frontier at Disney parks through the exhilarating TRON Lightcycle / Run attraction in Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom Park within Walt Disney World Resort, and at TRON Lightcycle Power Run at Shanghai Disney Resort.
As part of the celebration surrounding the upcoming film TRON: Ares, the attractions currently feature a limited-time overlay inspired by the new movie, offering guests a thrilling new way to experience the Grid. With cutting-edge visuals and storytelling enhancements, this update invites guests to join the next chapter of TRON and race through a world where the boundaries between reality and the digital realm blur.
