Tron: Ares director reveals the challenges of including Jeff Bridge in the new film

Jeff Bridges' return in Tron: Ares has been one of the most anticipated moments of the upcoming project, but for director Joachim Rønning, it was a "rough" process to have the actor back on board.

The film is the third installment in the series and serves as a sequel to Tron: Legacy. Featuring an ensemble cast that includes Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, and Gillian Anderson among others, it is shaping up to be one of the year's most exciting films.

Speaking to ScreenRant, director Rønning talked about the challenging process of having the OG Jeff Bridges back on the grid, as he told the outlet,

"To be able to go back and have airs talk with Kevin Flynn on the original grid, I think for everyone involved working on the movie, there was a lot of love for the franchise amongst all the team, and especially for Industrial Light & Magic, ILM, who made the VFX for the film...So when we made the original grid in our film, it was very important for me that we didn't polish it, that it was supposed to look as much as possible like the first film. And that's pretty rough. I'm just saying, if you've seen the first film lately, it is very rough."

In the previous film, Bridges played a software engineer who gets pulled into virtual reality and teams up with the program Tron to battle rogue software. Rønning honors that legacy by incorporating a 1982-style grid while expanding the universe with three digital realms: the Dillinger Grid, the ENCOM Grid, and the iconic Legacy Grid.

More details about Tron: Ares

Tron: Ares will follow Ares, a highly advanced program sent from the digital world into reality on a perilous mission, marking humanity's first encounter with self-aware artificial intelligence. A direct sequel to Tron: Legacy was announced in 2010 by creator Steven Lisberger, after which the film had a rocky road on its way to production. Years of development, rewrites, and director changes later, Rønning took over in 2024.

Filming took place in Vancouver in January 2024, after delays caused by writers and actors' strikes. As for the cast, we have legacy characters joined by new additions, with Jared Leto as Ares, Greta Lee as ENCOM CEO Eve Kim, Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger and Jodie Turner-Smith as Ares' second in command, Athena. They are joined by Gillian Anderson, Hasan Minhaj, Cameron Monaghan and Arturo Castro.

Set to release this month, Tron: Ares will have several theatrical formats, including RealD 3D, 4DX, ScreenX, Dolby Cinema, and IMAX. It's also the first film in the franchise with a PG-13 rating.