Jared Leto and Jeff Bridges Debut Ominous, Laser-Filled ‘Tron: Ares’ Teaser at CinemaCon
The lights went down in the Colosseum just after 3 p.m. on Thursday as a spectacle was about to unfold. Blue, green and red lasers shot out from every corner to fill the venue with light as and Jeff Bridges entered from the side of the stage to talk up their new film .
also revealed a new look at its tentpole during its presentation at Caesars Palace. The film — a follow-up to the 1982 seminal science-fiction film Tron and the 2010 sequel, Tron: Legacy — stars Leto as Ares, a computer program sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission to introduce artificial intelligence beings to humans.
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“Well, first off, as a kid I was obsessed with Tron,” said Leto. “It was the ‘80s and the future felt like it was just around the corner. … Tron had action, adventure, spandex — lots of spandex.” Leto continued by saying that the universe took him to a place he had never seen before, and he “couldn’t get enough.”
Of his character, Leto said Ares is a highly advanced program who crosses over from the digital world to the real one on a “do or die mission to fulfill his direction.” He said making the film was a blast, and Bridges jumped in to say that it offers an incredible visual experience combined with an auditory one. “The music, we’ve got Nine Inch Nails, man. You’re in for a treat,” he said of the iconic band behind the score.
Before they introduced the footage, Leto said that if audiences love the original like he did as a kid, “it will hit you right in the grid, wherever that is.”
The footage opened with an aerial shot of a metropolitan city as motorcycles decked out in red lights race across the freeway, trailed by a police car. Lasers shoot off the bikes and it’s enough to split the car in two. “I’m looking for something I do not understand,” Ares says in a voiceover. Later sequences show Ares coming to life as fleet of spaceships that descend upon the city as panicked citizens look to the sky (including a cop played by Greta Lee). “There’s no going back,” Bridges’ video game designer says in a voiceover to close the ominous footage.
‘Tron: Ares’
Leah Gallo
Directed by Maleficent: Mistress of Evil’s Joachim Ronning, Tron: Ares features a cast that also includes Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Jodie Turner-Smith, Arturo Castro, Cameron Monaghan and Gillian Anderson. Leto, Sean Bailey, Jeffrey Silver, Justin Springer, Emma Ludbrook and Steven Lisberger are producing, with Russell Allen serving as executive producer. Credited writers include Jesse Wigutow and Jack Thorne, based on characters created by Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird.
Last fall, Bridges, who reprises his role as video game designer Kevin Flynn, told Rob Lowe during an appearance on his podcast that Leto went method on the set during filming.
“I hadn’t met him before. I’m saying, ‘What’s it gonna be like?’ because he was also a producer of the show, big fan of the original, working on it for 10 years. I came in, and you know how each set has a different vibe?” Bridges said on SiriusXM’s Literally! With Rob Lowe. “There was an interesting vibe on this. I said, ‘How’s Jared? How’s he working?’ ‘He’s all right. You know, we call him Ares, you know, so he goes by his name,’ and I said, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’”
Bridges continued: “His name was Ares in the show, and I ended up going, ‘Hey Air, what’s happening man?’ And I say, ‘Is it OK if I call you Air?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, sure you can.’ Then we got loose, and it was just wonderful. I mean, we jammed, you know?”
CinemaCon, the annual gathering of cinema owners and Hollywood studios, is hosted in Las Vegas by the newly rebranded Cinema United, which for decades was known as the National Association of Theatre Owners. This year’s edition runs from March 31 to April 3.
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