After 15 years, the time has finally come for the Tron franchise to return to the big screen. Tron: Ares premieres on the 2025 movies schedule this weekend, with Jared Leto playing the title program who’s sent on a mission into the real world. Ahead of the upcoming Disney movie’s release, CinemaBlend has an exclusive look at Ares that delves into Leto being a fan of Tron ever since the original movie came out in 1982.
Jared Leto was born in 1971, so Tron came out at a great time to capture his young imagination. As he notes in the featurette, video games were “exploding.” Seeing Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn enter The Grid in a theater resulted in Leto “being transported to a place he never imagined.” So it’s no wonder that he was so passionate to star in Tron: Ares, as he mentions that it’s taken nine years for this movie to get off the ground.
suits and “ride” a Lightcycle, Leto was also pleased to get to work with Jeff Bridges, whom he called one of his “heroes.”
Kevin Flynn we’re seeing in Tron: Ares is the real deal who somehow survived Legacy, or if this is a Program that’s modeled itself on Flynn’s appearance. Whatever the answer, it’s great that Leto and Bridges shared screen time, and that the Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman was able lead a franchise he’s thought so highly of since he was a kid. Ares’ cast also includes Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Gillian Anderson and Cameron Monaghan, among others.
Behind the scenes, Joachim Rønning directed off is a script written by Jesse Wigutow, who created the story with David Digilio. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross composed the score as Nine Inch Nails, and they’re also executive producers. Tron: Ares opens in theaters this Friday, October 10. The first two movies, as well as the animated series Tron: Uprising, can be streamed with a Disney+ subscription.