Posted in: Disney, Movies | Tagged: Tron: Ares

TRON: Ares – Elements Of The Story Are From A 2011 Script

TRON: Ares has been stuck in development hell for over a decade, and it was confirmed that elements of a 2011 script are in this new movie.

The third TRON movie is another one of those development hell films, and one that we probably shouldn't believe is real until the credits roll in the theater. The idea of a follow-up film started not long after TRON: Legacy was released in theaters. However, the movie was eventually canceled despite getting the official green light in 2015. By 2017, the word "sequel" was out, and the word "reboot was in. The project went through a few directors until it finally entered production in April 2023. That first script, which was written in 2011, was not thrown out, at least, not entirely. The Hollywood Reporter recently spoke to producer and writer David DiGilio about how he worked on that script, which was actually version two, because despite the project being announced in October 2010, by June 2011, DiGilio was brought on. Obviously, the script has gone through a lot more hands in the last ten years, but elements of what DaGilio worked on did make it to the final draft.

"Yeah, it's incredible. In the strange job of studio screenwriting in Hollywood, I guess you could say that a project is never dead," DaGilio said of TRON: Ares' extremely long development cycle. "I am a lifelong sci-fi fan and child of the '80s, and Tron is a movie that really stuck with me from my boyhood. Having just seen Tron: Legacy, I got the chance to go in there and pitch on [Tron 3] with Joe Kosinski, and then build that out with [producer] Justin Springer and the team.

"Fortunately, Justin Springer is a tenacious producer, and [Screenwriter] Jesse Wigutow is a great writer," DaGilio continued. "Man, they went through something like 15 writers, but Jesse stuck with it throughout. When the movie finally got made, I heard that the title was Tron: Ares, and Ares is a character that I had created in the process as the villain. And Jared [Leto], I believe, was attached at the time to play it. I don't know the full process, but he may have also been one of the champions who kept it going. And over time, Ares morphed from being the villain to being the title character."

It must be kind of surreal to see a character you developed as a villain become the hero, but all of this almost didn't happen. Reports at the time made it sound like the third TRON film was very close to getting off of the ground in mid-2015. DaGilio revealed, "We were actually this close to filming. We were in heavy prep at the time, and the guys were scouting over in Shanghai when Disney purchased Lucasfilm. So that just sucked the air out of the room, because the biggest franchise in Hollywood was going to take their attention. It was a tough blow for us. [Screenwriter] Jesse Wigutow, who I've gotten to know through the process, came in and did a great pass after me. So things were rocking and rolling, but it got shut down."

That version of the story never came to be, but DaGilio revealed that while this might be a reboot that doesn't have a ton of connections to the previous two films, the bare bones structure of what was in those initial version of the script still very much exist. So it's not at all surprising to hear that he is getting credited with a "story by" credit with Wigutow getting a "screenplay by" credit, but he also notes that it is sort of nightmarish to try and figure out who gets what kind of credit when that many writers have had input.

"Once it got made, Disney sent out, via the WGA, the notice of tentative writing credit," DaGilio said of the complicated process of properly crediting writers on screenplays. "So I saw that I was sharing 'story by' with Jesse and that Jesse was getting 'screenplay by,' and I was thrilled. But, of course, you end up in arbitration when you have 15 writers, and the positive out of that experience was reading the script and getting to see that the foundation remained. The foundational structure remained, even if Sam and Quorra [from Tron: Legacy] had moved on. We no longer had those actors [Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde] under option, and a new wonderful cast is in there now. But that overarching story remained the same. So I was really happy to share that credit with Jesse, and I'm fired up to see the movie."

We have a little over a month before seeing if history repeats itself with TRON: Ares. Back in the day, the cultural narrative eventually became that a new Daft Punk album was released with a bonus TRON movie. Will this film suffer the same fate and be remembered as the release of a new Nine Inch Nails album with a bonus TRON movie? Once tickets go on sale, we'll have a much better idea of what early box office projections are going to look like.

TRON: Ares: Summary, Cast List, Release Date

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 feature film is directed by Joachim Rønning and stars Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Jodie Turner-Smith, Arturo Castro, Cameron Monaghan, with Gillian Anderson, and Jeff Bridges.

Sean Bailey, Jeffrey Silver, Justin Springer, Jared Leto, Emma Ludbrook and Steven Lisberger are the producers, with Russell Allen serving as executive producer.

Disney's TRON: Ares releases in U.S. theaters on October 10, 2025.

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