Ares Director Explains Challenges of Including Jeff Bridges' Original Grid

Tron: Ares’ director has broken down why including Jeff Bridges’ original sequence was “pretty rough” to accomplish. The highly anticipated addition to the franchise, Tron: Ares, is the third movie in the franchise with an all-new ensemble cast including Jared Leto, Evan Peters, Gillian Anderson, and Jodie Turner-Smith.

Tron: Ares is directed by Joachim Rønning, best known for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The film will follow Ares, a sophisticated program on a dangerous mission as humanity prepares for its first encounter with artificial intelligence.

In an interview with ScreenRant, director Rønning shared his thoughts on the seemingly impossible task of including the original Jeff Bridges’ grid:

ScreenRant: The contrast is also between the digital worlds, because it’s no secret. We see it in the trailer. We go into the Retro Tron grid in this film. I loved how you retained every little nuance of what it looked like in the 20th century. Can you talk to me about playing in that sandbox and how just rewarding it felt as a filmmaker to get to use 2025 technology on that retro Tron?

Joachim Rønning: No, again, as a fan of the franchise, 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.

It’s like the first one is kind of like a holy grail for VFX artists, and it was the first film that really utilized computer graphics and things like that. 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.

And we went in and we did some hand painting on the light lines, and we made the skin tones almost black and white, and we added the grain. It’s very little depth of field and the colors, and just being on that grid and using those very, at least for the fans and for myself, those famous icons was the hoot.

What Jeff Bridges’ Retro Tron Grid Means

The first film in the Tron franchise was released in 1982. Jeff Bridges played the lead role of a software engineer named Kevin Flynn, as he’s dragged into virtual reality and forced to defeat evil software, enlisting the security program Tron to defeat the villains.

Tron: Ares director Joachim Rønning incorporated the 1982-style legacy grid to pay homage to the original movie. The film is set to feature three grids (artificial digital universes), and they include: the Dillinger Grid, the ENCOM Grid, and the legacy grid.

Bridges is also set to reprise his role, but as fans remember, his character was seen sacrificing himself in the 2010 Tron: Legacy. While it’s not entirely clear how Bridges’ character Kevin Flynn will return, director Rønning is determined to pay homage to the film that put the Tron franchise on the map.

Our Take On Jeff Bridges’ Return To Tron

When fans think of the Tron franchise, only one face comes to mind, and that’s Jeff Bridges. Every movie reinvents and transforms itself, but Bridges remains a consistent piece of the puzzle. Kevin and his digital duplicate CLU died in Tron: Legacy, so fans have begun theorizing that Bridges’ return could just be the result of another copy.

Bridges made it clear that he wasn’t fond of his CGI appearance in Tron: Legacy, so it must be because of that, Rønning decided against de-aging Bridges again. The Grid opens up plenty of opportunities in the digital universe, and so anything is possible, including resurrection.

Only time will tell how Bridges’ character arc will match up with Leto’s Ares casting. While many are hesitant to see Jared Leto in yet another fantasy film, it could be the exact role Leto was made to play.