Jared Leto’s Ares Leads TRON Into the Real World

Disney is warming up for a major presentation at San Diego Comic-Con later this week with a new trailer for TRON: Ares, the first TRON movie in more than a decade. The film is helmed by Joachim Rønning, and it continues the legacy of the popular science-fiction franchise while upping the ante in unexpected ways.

TRON: Ares will be set in the real world, unlike the previous entries in the series that take place in the computer-generated world of the Grid. TRON: Legacy, the last TRON movie, was released in 2010 and features Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), son of TRON hero Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). After Sam stopped Clu, the evil program from the Grid, from combining the digital world and the real world in the film’s third act, he escaped from the digital world with Quorra (Olivia Wilde), whom he protected from Clu’s efforts to delete her. Quorra is one of the Grid’s rare isomorphic algorithms, known as ISOs.

Disney had originally intended the third TRON movie to start where TRON: Legacy left off. The project was officially greenlit by Disney in October 2010 with a script that would continue the story of Sam Flynn and Quorra, with Sam taking over his late father’s company ENCOM. However, things did not pan out as the studio did not manage to keep the momentum on the project. In 2015, it was announced that the studio canceled the development of the sequel, reportedly as a result of the lukewarm response to the box office performance of Disney’s other science-fiction film, Tomorrowland.

Ares’ debut in the franchise was one of the few elements that remained through the development of the aborted TRON 3 project, as the character was present in the multiple iterations of the script. The TRON 3 production was then resurrected in 2020. This time around, the project was conceptualized as a standalone reboot of the original film rather than a direct sequel to TRON: Legacy. For a while, reports indicated that TRON: Ares would be a streaming exclusive for Disney+, but they seem to have been dashed by the newly released trailer, which announced its theatrical release on October 10, 2025.

TRON: Ares Teaser Trailer Synopsis

In Disney’s official synopsis for the film, it is stated that “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.”

Production Notes

Lead actor Jared Leto will be playing the role of Ares in the film, with other cast members including Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger and Greta Lee as Eve Kim. Additionally, Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, Sarah Desjardins, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, and Gillian Anderson are also part of the cast. Jeff Bridges will reprise his role as Kevin Flynn, with the original TRON score for the film being provided by Nine Inch Nails.

TRON: Ares Trailer Synopsis

The first TRON: Ares trailer to be released earlier in April featured classic TRON elements such as flowing neon lines and digital lightcycles. The design language of TRON: Ares, as revealed by the first trailer, had, in many ways, confirmed that the movie was a reboot that was treading on familiar ground. The recently released second trailer revealed a bit more about the storyline in the new TRON installment.

The newly released trailer starts with a scene that is typical of technology companies unveiling a new product at conferences and keynotes. The scene shows Julian Dillinger, a character played by Evan Peters, announcing to the audience: “So much talk of AI and big tech today. Virtual worlds, what are they going to look like? When will we get there? Well, folks. We’re not going there. They are coming here.”

Julian Dillinger then brings out his “ultimate soldier,” whom he names Ares. Dillinger then starts pontificating while arrogantly bragging about the might of his latest innovation, saying: “He’s biblically strong, lightning fast, and supremely intelligent. And if he is struck down on the battlefield…” — Dillinger then knocks down Ares in the middle of his grandstanding address — “…I will simply make you another.” The whole exchange and Dillinger’s presentation of Ares present him as a caricature of a greedy technology executive who thinks he has found a way to have an upper hand in the AI race.

In actuality, however, things are different. Julian Dillinger might have thought he had created a new and obedient AI soldier in Ares, but the sentient program might have other plans. Ares has come to a different world and, in the trailer, he seems to be on a quest to find something that even he is not fully aware of yet. He asks: “What am I searching for? I don’t know.” The possibility of Ares as an AI on a philosophical quest also seems to be alluded to when Kevin Flynn shows up in the digital world as he meditates on: “A malfunctioning program who wants to live, why is that?”

Both the return of Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn in TRON: Ares and the big action that Ares’ battle against a rival program in the real world portends will be enough to draw old TRON fans to the new movie. On the other hand, Jared Leto’s exploration of the AI crossing over from the Grid and into the human world will offer newer aspects to the TRON questions on the porous boundaries between humans and machines. With the new trailer for TRON: Ares, the highly anticipated movie, with its directorial craftsmanship and music by Nine Inch Nails, is, indeed, upping the ante from what TRON fans have been used to.