MCP Help Us, Disney May Reboot 'Tron' With Jared Leto

Disney hit ctrl-alt-del on Tron 3 a few years ago, citing the mixed reaction and not-good-enough box office of Tron: Legacy as key factors. Like the 1982 original, the 2010 sequel had passionate fans...there just didn't seem to be enough of them. While an actual sequel still appears to be on hold, someone at Disney has faith in the Grid – a new Tron movie is in the works and it's being built as a vehicle (a lightcycle?) for Jared Leto.

Yes, this is weird news and it gets even weirder. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this Tron project will not be a direct sequel to Tron: Legacy, but it will mine the unused Tron 3 screenplay for its component parts. Leto will play a character named Ares, who played a prominent role in that script but has not appeared in any of the other movies.

So, let's break this down. Disney doesn't have faith in Tron 3, but they do have faith in a new Tron movie starring Jared Leto, an actor who inspires love/hate whiplash across the internet with such ferocity that we're all going to need chiropractors in a few years. It takes a special kind of human being to win an Oscar and do whatever he was doing as the Joker in Suicide Squad. But if Disney thinks that he is the guy who can march in and transform Tron into a suddenly viable franchise, they're barking up the wrong bush, getting high on their own supply, and other tortured-but-appropriate phrases.

If things come together, Leto will also produce alongside Emma Ludbrook and Tron: Legacy co-producer Justin Springer. Not currently on board is Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinksi, who made headlines just a few days ago when he talked about some of the ideas present in his scrapped Tron 3 screenplay:

What I'm excited about is the concept, which is an invasion movie from inside the machine coming out as opposed to one we've usually seen. So we hinted at that at the end of Legacy with Quorra coming out, but the idea for Ascension was a movie that was, the first act was in the real world, the second act was in the world of TRON, or multiple worlds ofTRON, and the third act was totally in the real world. And I think that really opens up, blows open the concept of TRON in a way that would be thrilling to see on screen.

At this point, it's not clear if Kosinksi or any of the actors from the previous film will return. If THR's report is accurate and the new Tron movie is borrowing key elements of Kosinski's project without asking him to climb on board...well, that's just gotta sting.

So now, we have to sit and wait and ask a few questions. Does this movie happen or does it vanish into the ether like Tron 3? Will Kosinksi be invited back? Will this actually morph into a Tron 3 or will it be another "rebootquel," a series relaunch that also functions as a follow-up? Does Jared Leto actually have the power to get movies made? Like, at all?