Tron 3 seems to be one step closer to reality. This according to Disney music executive Mitchell Leib who says he has recently had conversations about getting the sequel moving in the right direction. Moreover, Leib believes the timing is right and that the script they already have is great.
The previous entry in the franchise, Tron: Legacy, was released a decade ago in 2010. While not altogether unsuccessful, it wasn’t a huge hit by Disney standards, bringing in $400 million at the box office. During a recent interview, Mitchell Leib explained that, with the advent of Disney+, there are now more opportunities in place for Tron 3. Here is what he had to say about it.
“Now with Disney+, I think there’s opportunities to be creating content that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to create, you know because we’re in the movie business. We’re in the big movie business, and unless it’s a big movie idea we don’t make small movies. We’re only after basically billion dollar box office hits. On the one hand, that’s great. On the other hand, that’s a very narrow sleeve to operate in, and Disney+ I think is going to afford us the opportunity to expand and get much more diversified in the kind of content we can create.”
“And Daft Punk has a bit of a television and movie development company, and all kinds of things they’re into, businesses they’re into. So I had lunch with Paul Hahn to further a bit of a starting conversation that we’re looking at making a sequel to Tron now, we’re looking at Tron 3. And we’ve got a great script, I mean a really phenomenal script that we’re very excited about. Whereas the timing wasn’t right to have done it years ago, I think we feel like the timing is right now, and I feel like we’ve learned a lot of lessons from that last movie.”
This is a project that has been kicking around in some form or another for some time. At one point, Jared Leto was attached to star in a new Tron movie that never came to pass. We also learned not long ago that a Tron series was in the works for Disney+, but the plug was pulled. Speaking further, Leib expressed his desire to see Daft Punk return for the soundtrack, as well as having Joseph Kosinski return to direct.
“The right and first thing to do is to try and bring Daft Punk and would they want to. And the answer is they’re always open to anything and everything, but you gotta take it as it comes and see what the circumstances are. We don’t even know who would be directing it, I mean we’re hopeful Joe Kosinski would come back and do another one. A lot of things gotta fall into the right places, but certainly there’s an open-mindedness to it.”
Joseph Kosinski directed Legacy and has expressed his desire to return multiple times over the years. Kosinski most recently helmed Top Gun: Maverick, which is currently set to hit theaters in December. As for Daft Punk, that is a much larger question mark but the duo’s soundtrack was certainly a highlight for the previous movie.
Disney+ is allowing the studio to compete with Netflix in the streaming game. That will involve exploiting their franchises for premium content. Tron 3 would certainly seem to qualify. It’s just a matter of whether or not these pieces will end up falling into place. For more with Mitchell Leib, you can check out his episode of the Light the Fuse podcast.
