Let’s jack back in.
For the first time in 15 years, Disney is booting up the Tron franchise again with Tron: Ares, a.k.a. Tron 3—the long-teased follow-up to 2010’s cult-favorite Tron: Legacy.
But this time, we’re not going back into the Grid. The Grid is coming to us.
Set for an October 10, 2025 IMAX release, Tron: Ares promises a new kind of Disney sci-fi: bigger, grittier, and dangerously relevant in the age of ChatGPT, deepfakes, and AI hallucinations. It stars Jared Leto as Ares, a program who escapes the digital world and enters our own—part Pinocchio, part weaponized algorithm.
Here are 5 things we’re hoping to see when the light cycles hit real pavement.
1. An AI Villain Who Feels All Too Real
Sure, Tron Ares is technically about a digital program going rogue. But let’s be honest, it’s also about right now.
Director Joachim Rønning describes Ares as “an infant seeing the world for the first time”—a curious, powerful, emotionally unstable bit of code walking around with very human questions about identity. Sound familiar, doesn’t it?
We don’t just want Jared Leto Tron to look cool. We want him to feel like what AI might become—not a Terminator-style machine, but a program that misunderstands humanity in terrifyingly subtle ways. Give us uncanny valley vibes. Tug on our ethical and moral strings. Maybe… give us a villain we low-key relate to.
2. Jeff Bridges. Not Just a Cameo. A Legacy.
He’s back.
Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn is confirmed to return, and we need… nay, deserve more than a philosophical monologue or a Force ghost moment. We want Flynn to grapple with what his creation has become. We want echoes of the original Tron, questions about digital gods, and maybe even a reckoning with Ares himself.
Don’t just make it nostalgia bait. Flynn’s code is the reason the Grid exists. If Ares is out in the real world, Flynn’s legacy just got real-world consequences.
This is a Tron Legacy sequel. Let’s honor the legacy.
3. A Visual Feast Built for IMAX
We know Tron is going to look phenomenal—this is Disney Sci-Fi with a decade’s worth of VFX evolution behind it. But Tron: Ares is aiming to be more than slick design. It’s promising real-world action, light cycle chases in physical cities, and a gritty aesthetic scored by none other than Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross).
This should be a Sci-Fi Blockbuster 2025 that feels huge—both in scope and sound. If Legacy was digital opera, we want Ares to be digital punk.
And yes, we want to see those redesigned Identity Discs—including Ares’s triangular disc—flying across an IMAX screen.
4. Characters New AND Familiar
The Tron universe is expanding fast—and that’s a good thing. Alongside Leto and Bridges, the cast includes:
- Greta Lee as Eve Kim, a brilliant programmer who helps Ares cross over
- Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger, possibly the new villain or conflicted creator
- Gillian Anderson, Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, and Hasan Minhaj in roles still under wraps
But we also want connective tissue. Where is Sam Flynn? What happened to Quorra? Even a passing reference or cameo from Garrett Hedlund or Olivia Wilde could make this feel like a true bridge between worlds.
Give us evolution, not erasure.
5. Big Themes Beneath the Glow
Tron has always been ahead of its time. The 1982 original predicted a world inside machines before the internet even existed. Legacy asked what happens when creators become trapped by their code.
Tron: Ares has the chance to ask:
What happens when code tries to become a creator?
This film drops into a world already obsessed with AI—our art, our faces, our voices now easily replicated. We don’t just want cool tech battles. We want existential panic. Philosophical dread. The kind of sci-fi that keeps you up at night.
In short, we want this franchise to go from cult classic to cultural mirror.
The Final Stage
Tron: Ares isn’t just about glowing lines and data storms anymore. It’s about what happens when the Grid doesn’t need you to log in—because it already knows who you are.
With a wild cast, a timely theme, and a stacked production, this might be the Tron movie we’ve been waiting for. Or fearing.
The digital invasion begins October 10, 2025. Are you ready?
