Tron 3 Footage Released at D23 and Teases Nine Inch Nails Score

D23 returns us to The Grid thanks to the recently screened footage of Tron: Ares. Actors Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Jeff Bridges, and Evan Peters joined the D23 stage to introduce the footage, which Deadline describes as follows:

“The light cycles of Tron are seen speeding through city streets, leaving laser thin waves behind them, and splicing cars on the street in half. Jared Leto plays the Tron-like character clad in red while Greta Lee plays a “brilliant programmer whose great work has Ares coming into the world.” Leto in the voice-over of the trailer says, “I came here to find something…something important.” We see him zooming on a light cycle with Lee’s character. Bridges, who is the hacker and original video game character Kevin Flynn, appears as something of an apparition at the end in white robes.”

Produced by Walt Disney Pictures, Tron: Ares is the latest installment in the iconic science fiction franchise which first began way back in 1982 and was continued with 2010’s Tron: Legacy. Directed by Joachim Rønning, with a screenplay by Jesse Wigutow and Jack Thorne, you can check out the official logline for Tron: Ares below.

“Tron: Ares follows 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.”

Tron: Ares will star Oscar winner Jared Leto (Morbius) as the titular Ares, with the rest of the cast consisting of Greta Lee (Past Lives), Evan Peters (X-Men: Apocalypse), Hasan Minhaj (The Daily Show), Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim), Arturo Castro (Broad City), Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, The Crown), and Sarah Desjardins (Yellowjackets).

Tron

Release Date: July 9, 1982
Runtime: 96
Tagline: A world inside the computer where man has never been. Never before now.

Alongside this stacked cast, it was recently confirmed that Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges will return for Tron 3. Bridges first led the Tron franchise way back in the 1982 original, which follows a video game developer who is transported into the digital world known as The Grid. Bridges reprized the role of both Flynn and Clu in the 2010 legacy sequel, Tron: Legacy, which introduces his son who too finds himself sucked into The Grid where he finds his estranged father has been trapped for decades.

Tron: Ares Is Due to Land in Theaters in October 2025

Development on a further sequel in the Tron franchise first began more than two decades ago in 2010. While Tron 3 has taken its time to upload, producer Justin Springer feels that now is the “right time” for audiences to go back into The Grid.

“And I think now the ideas that we’ve explored in Tron and where you would imagine those ideas evolving to are more relevant than they’ve ever been. So it feels like the right time. And there’s a giant ride here now, and there’s one in Shanghai, but we have to get it right. We have to get the story and we have to get the team right. And so there’s still stuff to do before we have much to say about the movie.”

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