Tron: Ares adds Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith

The long-awaited third entry in the Tron franchise is really picking up steam. Six years have gone by since it was first announced that Jared Leto was in talks to star in a Tron project called Tron: Ares, but things really started to come together around Leto earlier this year. First, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales director Joachim Rønning signed on to direct the film. A couple months ago, we heard a rumor that Cillian Murphy might be reprising his Tron: Legacy role to be the villain in this film. Earlier this week, Evan Peters of Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story joined Leto in the cast. Now The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that Greta Lee (Past Lives) will be playing “a leading role” in the film, while Variety reports that Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim) has also been cast.

Tron: Ares is expected to start filming in August… but that will only be possible if the Screen Actors Guild strike doesn’t happen.

Scripted by Jesse Wigutow and Jack Thorne, Tron: Ares is said to tell the story of the emergence of a sentient program that crosses over into the human world that is not ready for contact. Leto is playing Ares, “the manifestation of the program.”

For twenty-eight years, director Steven Lisberger’s cult classic Tron was a standalone sci-fi adventure. Then in 2010 Joseph Kosinski took fans back to the world of Tron with the film Tron: Legacy – and since then things have been a bit messy. Kosinski wanted to make a third Tron film, to be called Tron: Ascension, but Disney cancelled the project when their movie Tomorrowland underperformed. Apparently the script for Tron: Ascension would have featured a character named Ares… and somehow the idea for that character has evolved into Tron: Ares. Kosinski had said that he had nearly given Leto a cameo in Tron: Legacy, in the End of Line club where Lisberger did make a cameo.

Leto is producing Tron: Ares with Emma Ludbrook and Jeffrey Springer. Russell Allen serves as executive producer.

What do you think of the cast that’s being assembled for Tron: Ares? Are you glad to hear that Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith will be in the movie?