It took decades, but fans of the 1982 cult hit Tron finally got a sequel with Tron: Legacy
in 2010.
Not long after, Disney announced a third movie, code named Tron: Ascension, was in the works.
Then… nothing, and the studio reportedly pulled the plug in 2015.
At this point, it seems Disney might be waiting another three decades before considering its
next Tron movie.
Here’s a look at why there won't be another light cycle trip around the Grid anytime soon.
Box office dud
Tron: Legacy earned $400 million dollars worldwide on a $170 million dollar budget.
And while that's a lot of money for the sequel to a 30-year-old cult hit, it still wasn't
quite enough to launch a franchise.
For the sake of perspective, Disney’s live action Alice in Wonderland was released in
the same year as Tron: Legacy and it brought in more than $1 billion dollars at the box
office.
$400 million dollars might sound like a lot, but Disney is used to making a lot more.
Not Disney enough
When the Tron sequel was axed in 2015, Disney's release calendar was already booked pretty
solid with tentpole releases like Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, and,
yes, another Alice in Wonderland.
What's the common theme here?
Outside of the Marvel movies, Disney's live action slate is almost exclusively remakes
of its animated hits.
Disney knows what works, and going with a proven story that fans already love is far
less risky that rolling the dice on another Tron.
Unless, of course, they can find a way to shoehorn Iron Man into there...
"Nope!"
Tomorrowland bombed
Disney pulled the plug on a third Tron movie in May 2015, almost immediately after Tomorrowland
tanked at the box office.
Like Tron, Tomorrowland was an ambitious sci-fi film with a family-friendly angle.
And like Tron, it didn’t do all that well.
Despite having George Clooney star and Brad Bird in the director's chair, Tomorrowland
couldn't clear $100 million dollars at the U.S. box office — falling well below its
reported $200 million budget.
Fresh off Tron: Legacy’s lackluster performance, Tomorrowland was confirmation that audiences
just aren’t interested enough in this type of movie.
Took too long
The plot of the third Tron was reportedly going to follow Olivia Wilde’s Quorra as
she ventures out into the real world.
Wilde, co-star Garrett Hedlund, and director Joseph Kosinski were all set to return.
But, when filming was about to start in late 2015, Disney shelved the project.
At that point, original star Bruce Boxleitner said he was no longer interested in making
another Tron, after seeing how Disney was treating the franchise.
"I’m done with it.
I’ve moved on.
I hate to say that but it’s been too up and down for me."
And if they did move forward now, it’d be pretty hard to make a Tron movie without Tron.
Tron: Uprising crashed
In 2012, Disney XD launched the animated series Tron: Uprising to tie into the world of Tron:
Legacy and potentially set up a new live action sequel.
The show was actually pretty good, but after launching with nearly 2 million viewers, the
ratings took a nose dive to around 300,000 by the time the first season wrapped.
If Disney was looking to the series as a proving ground that fans wanted more Tron, it pretty
much proved the opposite.
"Difficult proposition.
Difficult proposition at best."
Toy troubles
Disney makes a lot of movies, and it also sells a whole lot of toys.
A lot of tie-in merchandise was launched alongside Tron: Legacy in 2010, but the toys and games
were never really big sellers, which closed off a potentially huge financial avenue for
Disney and its partners.
The Tron: Evolution video game, which served as a prequel to Tron: Legacy, sold a mere
190,000 copies — which is pretty terrible for a hyped game built around what should've
been a hot property.
Waiting game
The time might not be right for a new Tron sequel now.
But what’s old will be new again eventually, right?
Franchises like these tend to come back around after a while in Hollywood, and it stands
to reason Tron will be no exception.
If it ever does, it sounds like they at least have a great script ready to go.
"Yeah, between us, they were like, 'This one's going to blow Legacy out of the water.'"
So, if it took 30 years for Tron: Legacy to get made, we can go ahead and pencil in a
date around 2040 for the next one, right?
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