Tron: Ares is a 2025 American science fiction action film. It is the third installment in the Tron series following Tron: Legacy (2010). Produced by Walt Disney Pictures, the film was directed by Joachim Rønning, and stars Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, and Gillian Anderson, with Jeff Bridges reprising his role as Kevin Flynn from the first two films. The story is about artificial intelligence originating from the Grid entering the real world, namely a highly advanced program called Ares.
Development of a sequel to Tron: Legacy began in October 2010 by franchise creator Steven Lisberger. In March 2017, Walt Disney Pictures shifted plans toward a reboot with Leto playing a new character. Garth Davis was set as director in August 2020 when Wigutow was working on the script, but stepped down in January 2023. Rønning replaced him a month later. Production was expected to begin in August 2023 but was delayed by the 2023 Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Filming ultimately began in January 2024 in Vancouver and finished in May. By August, industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails had been announced to be composing the score. The band's members, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, served as executive producers on the film, alongside Legacy director Joseph Kosinski.
Tron: Ares premiered in Los Angeles on October 6, 2025, before a general release followed on October 10, and received mixed reviews from critics. It was considered a box-office disappointment, grossing $142 million worldwide on a production budget of $180–220 million, although it found commercial success with its home media release.
Plot
In 2025, ENCOM and Dillinger Systems are in a race to bring digital constructs into reality. ENCOM's CEO Eve Kim and her partner Seth Flores visit a remote station near Skagway, Alaska built decades earlier by Kevin Flynn. Finding Flynn's "permanence code", enabling constructs to exist for more than 29-minute intervals, they transfer a digital orange tree into the real world.
Julian Dillinger, the head of Dillinger Systems and grandson of former ENCOM executive Ed Dillinger, introduces his shareholders to Ares, a Master Control Program he describes as the "perfect, expendable soldier". Ares shows signs of self-awareness and notes Julian's indifference to his programs' survival, while Julian's mother, Elisabeth, expresses concern about their constructs' limited lifespans. Julian sends Ares and his unit to attack ENCOM's digital Grid, downloading Eve's personal data in pursuit of the permanence code. Against his programming, Ares tries to save an injured program, but Julian extracts him and disables ENCOM's Grid.
Redeployed to the outside world, Ares tracks Eve's jet as she and Seth return to ENCOM with the permanence code. Learning of Julian's cyberattack from their colleague Ajay Singh, Eve flees as Ares and his second-in-command Athena chase her through the city on Light Cycles. Eve hijacks Athena's Light Cycle but is cornered by Ares, and destroys the drive containing the code. Reaching the end of his 29-minute lifespan, Ares recognizes Eve's empathy towards his plight. As Ares and Athena are "derezzed", Julian digitizes Eve onto the Dillinger Grid.
Ares reveals the code can be obtained using Eve's identity disc, and Julian is willing to let her die as a result. Lying to Athena that Julian is "indisposed", Ares bargains with Eve, asking to achieve permanence in exchange for her freedom. Suspicious, Athena contacts Julian and, deciding that Ares is malfunctioning, returns with orders to de-rez him. Evading their pursuers, Ares and Eve return to the real world. En route to ENCOM, they reflect on their motivations, as Ares shows further signs of self-awareness and individuality.
Eve realizes a copy of the code might be stored in Kevin Flynn's original office, preserved at ENCOM Tower, where they reunite with Seth to upload Ares onto Flynn's original Grid using a particle laser. They are ambushed by Athena, who destroys the laser to trap Ares, but experiences a moment of self-awareness before de-materializing. Ajay and his assistant Erin arrive, joining Seth and Eve in using Athena's own laser to hack the Dillinger Grid.
Elisabeth retakes the position of CEO and tries to turn off the particle lasers, but Athena re-materializes and fatally stabs her, to Julian's horror, having interpreted her as an obstacle in his directive to obtain the code "by any means". On Flynn's Grid, Ares encounters a manifestation of Flynn, and they discuss Ares's desire for permanence. Intrigued by Ares's wish to live and to save Eve, Flynn grants him the permanence code and re-materializes him via backdoor at Flynn's Arcade.
Athena pilots a Recognizer into the city, capturing Eve while the ENCOM staff breach the Dillinger Grid, but Ares intercepts Athena and her unit. Ajay, Seth, and Erin shut down the Dillinger mainframe, preventing Ares's fellow Dillinger programs from re-materializing, and a wounded Athena permanently de-materializes in Ares's arms. The police raid Dillinger headquarters, but Julian uses the laser to digitize himself. Eve and Ares go their separate ways, as ENCOM uses the permanence code to benefit the world.
Ares sends Eve a postcard, traveling the world in search of Flynn's son, Sam, and his companion, Quorra. Eve reconstructs the Skagway facility on top of ENCOM Tower, including the orange tree. Back in the damaged Dillinger Grid, Julian is transformed by an identity disc that belonged to his grandfather's program Sark.
Cast
Jared Leto as Ares, a combat program created by Dillinger Systems Greta Lee as Eve Kim, the current CEO of ENCOM who is in search of Kevin Flynn's Permanence Code Miru Kim as young Eve Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger, the CEO of Dillinger Systems and the grandson of the late Ed Dillinger Jodie Turner-Smith as Athena, a program creation of Dillinger Systems and second-in-command to Ares Hasan Minhaj as Ajay Singh, Eve's business partner and CTO of ENCOM Arturo Castro as Seth Flores, a colleague and friend of Eve Gillian Anderson as Elisabeth Dillinger, Julian's mother and the daughter of the late Ed Dillinger Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, the former CEO of ENCOM and the father of Sam Flynn who is now a digital construct within his original grid Cameron Monaghan as Caius, a combat program and member of Ares' elite special forces unit Sarah Desjardins as Erin, an ENCOM employee and Ajay's assistant Selene Yun as Tess Kim, Eve's deceased sister Catherine Haena Kim as the voice of Tess Kim Narsha Kim as young Tess Aaron Paul Stewart as Cyber Security Pete Roger Cross as Cross, a high-end executive at Dillinger Systems and Julian Dillinger's right-hand man Roark Critchlow as General McGrath, a member of the military that attended Julian Dillinger's pitch Katharine Isabelle as Marcia Lee Hadlow, an attendee of Julian Dillinger's pitch Gary Vaynerchuk as Stuart Roche, an attendee of Julian Dillinger's pitch Kwesi Ameyaw as Silvio
Nine Inch Nails members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross make cameo appearances as two F-35 pilots. Shannon Leto, brother of Jared Leto and co-founder of Thirty Seconds to Mars, makes a brief appearance as a pizza parlor patron who witnesses the climax. Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde appear in their Tron: Legacy (2010) roles as Sam Flynn and Quorra through archival photos, and archive audio of David Warner as the original Master Control Program from Tron (1982) is used. Reporters Robin Roberts, Kara Swisher, Curt Sandoval, Jaclyn Lee, Trevor Ault, and Zohreen Shah appear as themselves, as does computer scientist Fei-Fei Li.
Production Development Original concept Development of a sequel to Tron: Legacy was announced in October 2010 by franchise creator Steven Lisberger, with Legacy screenwriters Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz set to return. In April 2011, director Joseph Kosinski stated the script was still in development, and confirmed that the story would continue from Tron: Legacy. He stated that the relationship of the characters of Garrett Hedlund's Sam Flynn and Olivia Wilde's Quorra would be "the next step", with the plot following their adventures in the real world. On March 31, 2011, Kosinski said that the film's script was expected to be finished in two weeks and its working title was TR3N.
In June, it was reported that screenwriter David DiGilio was hired to write the screenplay, as Kitsis and Horowitz had dropped out to develop their television series Once Upon a Time. In March 2012, Bruce Boxleitner stated he believed filming could potentially begin as early as 2014, after Kosinski was available following his commitments to the film Oblivion. In June, Kitsis and Horowitz stated that they were still involved with the project, though by December, Jesse Wigutow had been hired to rewrite the script. That same month, Boxleitner and Hedlund were confirmed to be returning for the sequel.
In March 2015, it was revealed that Disney had officially greenlit the third film with Hedlund, Kosinski and Wilde set to return, and production due to begin in October in Vancouver. In May, it was announced that Disney had scrapped the film, Hedlund stated the reason for the cancellation was a result of the box office failure of Tomorrowland. In July, Boxleitner announced the cancellation of the film had ended his interest in returning to the franchise. In September, Hedlund stated he was told that the sequel was not "totally dead", and would be interested in returning should a new film be announced.
In August 2016, Brigham Taylor, then a development executive at Disney, revealed discussions were being had about Tron future. In 2017, Kosinski stated that the sequel was in more of a "cryogenic freeze" as opposed to completely cancelled. He attributed Disney's then-recent acquisition of Lucasfilm and Marvel as reasons for Tron being put on the backburner. According to producer Justin Springer, the title for the abandoned sequel was Tron: Ascension.
Redevelopment as Ares In March 2017, it was reported the franchise would be moving towards a reboot instead of a Legacy sequel, with Jared Leto attached to produce and portray a new character named Ares that was retained from prior iterations of the Ascension script. The seeds of the film was traced to a conversation between Springer and Lisberger during development of Legacy about how the latter came up with the original film, that being how there was an obsession with a first encounter with aliens in the late 1970s and early 1980s when he lived around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), leading him to wonder what if intelligent life didn't come from outer space but from inside a machine created by people yet not controlled by them. The Ascension script was abandoned, but the filmmakers made a conscious decision to develop some of the Ares story from that version, particularly its core concept due to their idea that it remained relevant. They said that since the release of Legacy, the concept of Ares and its retention of older ideas had become more relevant with each year until its release instead of becoming more dated. In August 2020, Garth Davis was hired to direct the film, with Wigutow still attached to write the screenplay. Patrice Vermette at the time had been hired as production designer.