The Failed Franchise of Tron

by Nicholas Lemieux

Tron legacy lightcycle

Famous Sci-Fi movie franchises: Star Wars, The Matrix, Back to the Future, Alien...Tron?

For those of you unaware, Tron was a Sci-Fi franchise invented by Disney back in 1982. At the time, the first two films in the original Star Wars trilogy had just been released to mass financial success. Hoping to capitalise on this recent influx of Science Fiction films, Disney started work on creating their own live-action movie they intended to become the next biggest Sci-Fi. 

Tron was primarily inspired by the arcade video game Pong and its primary intention was to create a movie set within the inner workings of a video game. The film starred Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, a computer programmer who, whilst trying to prove a corrupt corporate executive has stolen his video game programs, finds himself transported into the digital world of a mainframe computer, where anthropomorphic programs are consigned to fight for their lives in gladiatorial games. Working alongside these programs, including the titular main character, Flynn must now find a way to not only escape from the software but to also stop an evil AI known as the Master Control Program, who seeks access to the computer systems of the US government and military.

Although originally intended to be a fully-animated film, Tron was eventually developed into a live action film with computer animation being utilised to create the digital world of the mainframe. Its effects, whilst a bit cheesy now, were revolutionary back in the 80s and today still comes across as being very impressive for its day. One could even argue that, as one of the first Disney movies that incorporated CGI, it somewhat paved the way for Pixar. When it was first released, Tron received generally positive reviews, with particular praise going towards its computer-generated imagery, but proved to be a general flop at the box office, grossing only $33 million worldwide, nowhere near the hit Disney intended it to be.

Although the film flopped, over the years Tron eventually developed to become something of a cult film and grew into a small yet notable franchise. Pop culture references about the movie were made in popular shows such as The Simpsons and Family Guy and several spin-off video games and comic books were also developed. A level in the hit 2006 video game Kingdom Hearts II even took place in the digital world of Tron and also featured several characters from the movie. Eventually, after almost three decades, Disney took note of the movie’s cult following and green-lit a sequel 28 years after the release of the first one. Tron: Legacy was released in December 2010 and followed Flynn’s son Sam venturing into the digital world of the Grid to find his long-lost father alongside an algorithm called Quorra, all whilst stopping a malevolent program called CLU from invading the real world. The film was released exactly a year after James Cameron’s mega-hit Avatar and Disney intended it to be just as successful. Expectations for Legacy were high but ultimately, whilst it was a financial success at the box office, grossing $400 million worldwide, it was nowhere near the money-making hit Disney intended it to be and, coupled with its mixed reviews, it was overall a disappointment.

Despite this, plans for a potential third Tron film were still in development and a spin-off animated TV show called Tron: Uprising premiered on Disney XD in 2012. But that same year, a minor complication came into the mix.  Disney entered into a little deal to buy out a little-known company called Lucasfilm, famous for films such as Howard the Duck and Willow. And some obscure franchise called Star Wars.

As mentioned earlier, the whole purpose of Tron was to cash in on this trend of Sci-Fi movies made popular after Star Wars. Why keep on following that trend when you own the trend-setter in the first place? Not too long afterwards, with minimal advertising, Tron: Uprising was cancelled after one season, ultimately ending on a cliffhanger. Despite initial plans for pre-production, the third Tron movie was abruptly cancelled back in May 201, after the box office failure of Tomorrowland, which convinced Disney to scrap all of their upcoming science-fiction movies currently in production besides the Marvel and Star Wars ones.

The Tron franchise does indeed seem dead for the time being, besides some unconfirmed rumours that development for Tron 3 or a reboot may be in the motions. But, whilst a failed experiment overall, Tron was still exceptionally unique for its time, being one of the earliest motion pictures to place a heavy emphasis on creating an entirely CGI-animated environment and was also the first live-action movie which incorporated the use of 3D CGI, particularly in the famous constantly light cycle sequence. And, hey, at the end of the day, it’s still a better video game movie than Pixels.