Game Over For TRON 3

Disney has reportedly pulled the plug on a third TRON movie.

The Hollywood Reporter has learned from sources that the studio has decided to not go ahead with plans for a sequel to the 2010 TRON: Legacy, which was a follow up to the original 1982 film about a computer programmer who is sent into the virtual reality world inside a computer network.

Although the studio had not given the film an official greenlight, preparation had been started on the film with the eye towards a fall shoot in Vancouver. TRON: Legacy stars Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund and director Joseph Kosinski were all on board to return. Legacy featured Hedlund as the son of the original programmer (Jeff Bridges) who follows him into the world inside the computer. Wilde played a personified computer program who follows Hedlund’s character back to the real world at the end of the film.

Legacy earned over $400 million at the worldwide box office from a $170 million budget, enough to guarantee at least a small profit for the studio. Given that sequels often have a lesser box office return from their predecessor, Disney may have had some qualms about giving the go ahead to a film that may have not been as guaranteed a hit as previously thought in the wake of the studio’s Tomorrowland opening to a disappointing $33 million weekend take last week.

While I was only lukewarm on TRON: Legacy, I was intriguing by the way the film ended with Wilde’s computer program character having traveled from the virtual reality world to the real world. It is a pity that we won’t get to see how she her adventures here would have played out.