From the Grid to Reality: TRON: Ares New Trailer Revealed

Disney has just released a new trailer for TRON: Ares hours ahead of San Diego Comic-Con. As fans gear up for Disney’s big SDCC presentation, the studio is trying to fire up interest in its Ares movie with this latest look.

Directed by Joachim Rønning, TRON: Ares will start a new spinoff in the popular sci-fi franchise, one that moves the setting away from the digital Grid to the real world.

TRON: Ares’ story will be set in the real world

The last time we were in the Grid was back in the 2010’s TRON: Legacy, a sequel to the original 1982 film. In that film, we were introduced to Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), the TRON protagonist. In its closing act, Sam and Quorra, a unique isomorphic algorithm or ISO, manage to stop Clu, the Grid’s tyrannical program, from merging the digital world with the real world and keeping them connected forever. At the end of the movie, Sam and Quorra, who were being tracked by Clu and his goons for deletion or termination, escape the Grid to the real world.

TRON: Ares’ story will pick up from where Sam and Quorra stopped, but with a new twist; the sequel will tell the story of the “digital world meets the real world” from the point of view of one of the programs in the Grid. The original script for TRON 3 was to pick up immediately after Legacy ends. In October 2010, Disney greenlit the third TRON movie, which was to be set after Sam inherits the reins of his late father’s company, ENCOM. The film would have followed Sam and Quorra as they explored both their relationship and the Grid itself. But the project hit roadblocks and ultimately Disney abandoned it in 2015, after being reportedly dissuaded by the paltry returns of another of its sci-fi efforts, Tomorrowland.

In 2020, Disney gave the green light to a TRON reboot, this time, as a stand-alone project and not directly related to TRON: Legacy. But earlier scripts for the franchise resurfaced, including Ares, a powerful AI that functions as a central presence in the earlier scripts. After weathering production delays and a pandemic-induced production shutdown, as well as Hollywood’s latest rounds of labor actions, Rønning’s TRON: Ares is now done and ready for a fall 2025 theatrical release.

“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,” the Disney synopsis adds. Jared Leto will be in the lead role as Ares, with Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger and Greta Lee as Eve Kim. Joining them in the cast are Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, Sarah Desjardins, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, and Gillian Anderson. The film will also have the return of Jeff Bridges in his role as Kevin Flynn, with the original film’s composer, Nine Inch Nails, signed on to do the film’s score.

In the Trailer: A Digital Titan is Unleashed into the Real World

In a first trailer that debuted in April, the film gave us some of the traditional TRON staples. Spectacular neon lines that weave and sculpt the Grid, lightcycles zooming around corners in high-speed chases, audacious digital architecture, and scenery that is jarringly photoreal. But there was little detail about what the story was all about. This week’s new trailer keeps the signature visuals while giving us a better idea of what the story is all about.

The trailer opens with a scene that might look and feel like it is coming from an Apple or Microsoft product keynote. In a large auditorium in front of a live and virtual audience, Julian Dillinger (played by Evan Peters) gives a keynote presentation in which he says, “So much talk of AI and big tech today. Virtual worlds, what are they going to look like, and when will we get there? Well, folks. We’re not going there. They are coming here.”

Dillinger goes on to reveal what appears to be his latest innovation, his “ultimate soldier.” He says, “He’s biblically strong, lightning fast, and supremely intelligent. And if he is struck down on the battlefield…” — at this point, Dillinger smashes the Ares Project mid-keynote — “…I will simply make you another.” With that, we get the sense that Dillinger is going to be the kind of corporate scoundrel who is hell-bent on building a new world order by using AI for his designs and believes he has his creation in hand.

But that might not be the case. While Dillinger might believe he has created the first Ares and has him in his iron grip, it appears Ares has a mission all his own. We see the Ares Program, with an intriguing human touch to him, in search of something he can only half comprehend. This opens up a potentially intriguing and profound philosophical take, especially as Kevin Flynn shows up in the grid to ask, “A malfunctioning program who wants to live, why is that?”

The nostalgia angle will be Bridges reprising his role as Flynn, but Leto as an AI escaping the digital and into the physical world is a fresh narrative that will potentially expand the thematic underpinnings of the sci-fi franchise on the age-old debate of man vs. machine.

The visual polish will be retained, with Rønning working his directorial magic on both the digital worlds as well as the very much real-world locations. And with the score from Nine Inch Nails, fans can look forward to that dissonant industrial soundtrack that worked so very well for the original. TRON: Ares will hopefully deliver both the spectacle and a higher-order thematic exploration to satiate fans who will have to wait until October 10, 2025, for the movie to hit theaters.