Jared Leto ‘all in’ on ‘Tron: Ares’: Secrets from our set visit

Article content

VANCOUVER — More than 40 years after the debut film became a cult sci-fi favourite, Tron is racing back into theatres with a brand-new story.

Article content

Following up on the seminal 1982 original and a 2010 sequel, Tron: Ares will bring the virtual environment of the digital Grid into the real world with new stars Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Cameron Monaghan, Arturo Castro and Gillian Anderson.

Article content

Article content

Jeff Bridges, who led the first movie as Kevin Flynn, a video game designer who was sucked into the computer world known as the Grid, is also returning to the franchise.

After plans for a direct sequel to 2010’s Tron: Legacy were abandoned, Leto campaigned for a new story that would be set in the same universe as Tron but take it in a different direction.

“It’s a title he’s always loved since childhood and wanted to be a part of,” producer Justin Springer said when Postmedia visited the set at Mammoth Studios outside of Vancouver last winter. “The first movie was such an important, informative experience for him and quite beloved. For Jared to now step into that universe is very exciting. You feel it on screen. You feel his passion for the franchise.”

Article content

Leto — who also produced the film, and has been attached to the project since 2016 — calls himself a proud “super fan” of Tron.

“I’m all in on Tron. I love Tron, I always did. It captured my imagination, and it showed me a world I never imagined before. It was this combination of technology and creativity that really attracted me,” the Oscar winner said.

After reading an early version of the script for Tron: Ares, Leto told producers if they were, “ever interested in developing a movie around (that) character, I would be really interested.”

‘A new story’

Directed by Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales filmmaker Joachim Ronning, Tron: Ares casts Leto as Ares, a highly sophisticated digital soldier who is sent into the real world along with Athena (Turner-Smith) to obtain a code that will make it possible to create more lethal forms of AI weaponry.

Article content

Article content

But after he meets Eve Kim (played by Lee), an employee who works for ENCOM, which is the company started by Flynn in the 1982 film, Ares aborts his directive and finds a love for humanity. As lightcycles and other tech from the Grid make their way into our world, the two go on the run with Athena in pursuit.

Springer, who also worked on Tron: Legacy, said that Ronning and writer Jesse Wigutow won’t override what happened in the two previous entries, but emphasizes Tron: Ares is not a direct sequel.

“It’s a new story set in that world,” Springer said, calling the entry a “soft reboot.”

There are threads and Easter eggs that will tie back to the earlier films. Peters, for example, plays Julian Dillinger, the grandson of original Tron baddie Edward Dillinger (David Warner). 

Article content

But the creative team this time around is excited to be telling a story that deals head-on with artificial intelligence and what could happen if sentient programs found a way to enter the real world.

“It’s very much in the zeitgeist of what’s happening now,” Springer said. “Tron, 40 years ago, was about the exploration of inside the complex virtual world inside a computer and the programs that inhabited that … It was a look inside a world that people were just starting to understand in the early 1980s. Very few people had their own personal computers. If that was what the first two movies were about, this movie is about emergence … it’s about what happens when the virtual world and the real world start to blur together.”

Article content

“Having a program exist in the real world was interesting for me – I hadn’t seen that before,” Ronning said. “And the idea of Ares finding out what it means to be human, what it takes to be human, was fascinating.”

The first film wasn’t a blockbuster, grossing only $50 million worldwide. Tron: Legacy was a modest success, but did not reach the box office heights producers might have hoped for. But the reason Tron hasn’t gone away (there’s also a theme park ride devoted to the property at Walt Disney World in Florida) is that it has always been ahead of its time in its themes and the passion its fans have for the films.

“There’s a lot of people on this crew who were on the last film. But the reason Tron always comes back is there’s always a group of artists and technologists and people who make films who were inspired by it when they were young,” Springer said. “Now they want a chance to work on it. Everyone’s looking for ways to bring those things back, from the writer to the production designer to the prop master. They’re all thinking, ‘How can we find Easter eggs? How can we find ways to get things from the 1982 film and 2010 film into this movie?’ … It’s big not just in terms of the way we film it, but in terms of its ideas about they way in which we interact with technology.”

Article content

The Grid breaks into the ‘real world’

In Tron: Legacy, very little of the film took place outside of the confines of the universe first envisaged in 1982 by original writer/director Steven Lisberger.

“It was a down-the-rabbit hole kind of movie into the virtual world,” Springer said. “This movie bounces between the worlds much more.”

Ronning, who takes over from director Joseph Kosinski (F1), was planning multi-day night shoots in Vancouver to capture chase scenes. When we visited, he was in the midst of filming a snowy mountain scene with Lee on a volume stage. He gleefully showed off footage of Leto and Turner-Smith riding lightcycles.

Another scene we observed showed Ares squaring off against more than a dozen other fighters. Ronning then showed us how at least one major character dies.

Article content

“Spoiler alert,” he joked.

“There are so many different ways that we’re making this movie,” Springer said. “We built lots of practical sets and real lightcycles. We’re bringing the slick digital style of Tron into a more grounded world … there’s an invasion-movie quality to it.”

But Tron:Ares does offer a new approach to the idea to the fear that AI could one day destroy humankind. It’s a story that has been told in Terminator and other futuristic movies.

“It’s a dangerous time, but I think it’s interesting to be hopeful and optimistic about what a positive outcome might look like in terms of an interrelationship between technology and humanity,” Springer offered. “It could be mutually beneficial. That’s where the story is driving. Ares and Eve feel stronger together than either would alone, which hopefully that is a nice message to put out when there’s a lot of AI doomsday right now.”

Article content

“Although it’s about an AI program that goes rogue, I’m not so interested in the AI aspect of this story,” Ronning said. “For me, it’s about Ares’ journey and discovering what it means and what it takes to be human. That’s what it’s all about, trying to answer those questions.”

Find the biggest screen possible

When Tron: Legacy opened in theatres 15 years ago, the creative team led by Kosinski pushed the limits of IMAX 3D technology to give moviegoers a thrilling theatrical experience.

Tron: Ares will be no different.

“We talk about that all the time. The difference in 15 years is an eternity in the movie business,” said production designer Darren Gilford, who also worked on Tron: Legacy. “The technology advances so quickly … It’s a nice evolution.”

Article content

“You have an obligation with Tron to release it in a way that can be shown on the biggest screens possible using some of the most interesting technology available to us, from camera to sound. It’s meant to be a giant, must-go-see-in-the-theatre type of experience,” Springer added.

Of course, music will once again play a big role in helping welcome audiences into the world of Tron and producers tapped Trent Reznor and his longtime collaborator Atticus Ross to craft the soundtrack.

The first single, I Know You Can Feel It, layers ’90s grunge sounds into the dystopian dread that’s been a hallmark of the pair’s alt-rock film scores.

“There’s a legacy from Wendy Carlos to Daft Punk to what we do next,” Springer said. “I just feel a huge obligation to deliver. Daft Punk was very different from what Wendy Carlos did, and this will feel different and will hopefully be as interesting and as important to the film itself.”

Tron: Ares opens in theatres Oct. 10.

[email protected]

Article content