Tron 3 was canceled by Disney because of Star Wars and Marvel, says Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinki. Before taking to the skies with Tom Cruise as director of Top Gun: Maverick, Kosinski in 2010 resurrected another long-dormant ‘80s title by directing a sequel to 1982’s Tron. Unfortunately Tron did not take off as a new Disney franchise, despite Tron: Legacy grossing a respectable $400 million at the worldwide box office.
The original Tron of course was itself not exactly a massive box office success for Disney. Despite boasting early computer effects and interesting sci-fi themes, the film made just $33 million on a reported budget of $17 million. But Tron did go on to become a cult film, which is why Disney ultimately decided to go ahead with Tron: Legacy as a potential franchise-launching science fiction property. Starring original Tron actor Jeff Bridges, the sequel boasted amazing effects as it depicted a virtual reality world, and also featured an acclaimed score from Daft Punk. Though the movie didn’t do as well as Disney hoped, it did garner its own cult following, leading to hopes of Tron 3. And indeed something involving Tron appears to still be moving ahead at Disney, as Jared Leto indicated earlier in 2022 when he discussed the Tron project he has been attached to for a few years.
That Leto-led Tron project is of course reported to be directed by Garth Evans (at last update) and not Tron: Legacy’s Kosinski. As Kosinski just related to Vulture in a new interview, his swing at a third Tron movie was in fact canceled by Disney in 2015 for reasons that he says he fully understands. Kosinski explained:
I got so close. I really tried. I got close in 2015, and Disney pulled the plug on it. I hadn’t built anything, but I had the whole movie storyboarded and written. I was really excited because it was inverting the idea: It was all that stuff coming into our world, and it was about the blending of the two. But it was a different Disney by 2015. When I made Tron: Legacy, they didn’t own Marvel; they didn’t own Star Wars. We were the play for fantasy and science fiction. And once you’ve got those other things under your umbrella, it makes sense that you’re going to put your money into a known property and not the weird art student with black fingernails in the corner — that was Tron. And that’s okay.
Kosinski’s Tron: Ascension was once described by the director as an "invasion movie" in which beings from the grid would have come to the real world. But fans will never get to see that vision as Disney elected to go in a different direction. It remains to be seen what Leto’s Tron ultimately offers up, but it does appear the project is still moving forward.
Of course it makes a certain sort of sense for Disney to place their emphasis on making Marvel and Star Wars movies given the hugeness of those franchises, while back-burnering something like Tron that remains more of a niche title. But obviously with Disney+ now in play, it’s possible to be niche and still get new content made. So perhaps somewhere down the road Kosinski will still get a chance to unleash his vision of Tron 3 on the world. Fans of Tron would certainly love some kind of revisit of that world, given how much they love the first two movies. Obviously a full-on big screen experience would be wish number one, given how important overwhelming visuals and sound are to making Tron come alive. But even a small-screen Tron 3 would be better than nothing. And perhaps Disney can someday take a small break from churning out Marvel and Star Wars content to make that happen.
Source: Vulture