First ‘Tron: Ares’ Footage Brings the Grid Into the Real World

“Tron: Ares” arrives next year, following in the footsteps of 1982’s “Tron” and 2010’s “Tron: Legacy.” And at D23 on Friday the first footage from the movie was revealed. And it is a doozy.

The movie stars Jared Leto as the titular character, a program who escapes the computerized video game world of the Grid for our own world. The footage began with Evan Peters’ Julian Dillinger, who noted on stage, “You know the name Dillinger doesn’t mean great things for those on the Grid. Dillinger is giving a speech about how we are looking for life in the stars but that we should have been looking inside – inside the Grid that is.”

We see Leto crawling into our world. At first you see him looking around but there are more ominous shots – a sequence (maybe a chase?) in the snow, a destroyed downtown area, and Greta Lee, as a scientist who is studying AI, asking Leto who he is. And then the cool stuff starts. We see a Recognizer traveling slowly down an urban street (we see it from the inside of an office building) and human cops trailing Ares on a lightcycle. He pushes a button and a ribbon of light peels out of the back of the lightcycle. It slices the cop car in half.

And finally, the footage ends with Ares walking up to a mysterious figure. The figure moves towards him, barefoot, a white rob trailing him. “Hello user,” the figure says to Ares. It’s Jeff Bridges, back as Kevin Flynn.

“Tron: Ares,” which reverses the usual journey of the franchise, going from the computer world to ours, looks bracing and action-packed. And the night’s revelation that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ Nine Inch Nails will be providing the music makes everything even more exciting.

Directed by Joachim Rønning, the movie opens in theaters on Oct. 10, 2025.