Last week, Disney surprisingly shocked the crowd at the San Diego Comic Con with a three minute teaser trailer for a sequel to the 1982 cult favorite TRON. (By the way, Disney, you really need to get that online…)
While it had been known that TRON‘s original writer/director Steve Lisberger had been hard at work developing a sequel for the past few years, it was not known that they had actually put together some test footage, even to the point of calling back star Jeff Bridges.
Now, one of the best sources for news out of Disney, Jim Hill Media, has an interesting piece with more information on the project. Disney is pushing to get this film in theaters for Summer 2010, with Pixar’s own John Lasseter being the driving force in getting it done. To the end, Lasseter has let Lisberger go from the project, and has brought in veteran commercial director Joseph Kosinski to helm the picture and Lost scribes Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz to draft a new screenplay from scratch.
Lasseter is a pretty sound guy when it comes to story and making a good, if not great, film, so it would be pretty presumptious to think he was making a mistake in removing Lisberger from the film. But on the other hand, this is the guy who created the world within a computer, presaging the idea of cyberspace. Although he’ll still retain a co-producer credit, I can’t help but wonder if Lisberger’s absence will ultimately lead to an absence of what made the original film special.
