Disney Moves Forward with a Third 'Tron'

Disney's "Tron" has become a bit of a strange beast. The initial release of the film in 1982 was not a commercial success. However it did achieve a cult following and a certain level of penetration into the pop culture consciousness. Rumors of a sequel started first swirling around in the early 2000s, but it wasn't until 2010s "Tron: Legacy" that the franchise was brought back to theaters. Disney put a great deal of faith in the sequel and pumped an impressive amount of money into the film itself and the marketing campaign. The box office results fell short of expectations and it became an open question as to whether the series would continue any further. Now there's been the first concrete move towards a third "Tron" installment, as The Hollywood Reporter's website has broken the story that David DiGilio has been hired to write the next film in the series.

Despite publicized intentions to create a new trilogy of films even before the release of "Tron: Legacy" the future of the series was in doubt for a time. The film grossed over $400 million dollars worldwide, but this was below the expectations that Disney had. Between the established brand and the 3D effects the studio had been hoping for something closer to the success of "Avatar" and they just didn't get that. There were glimmers of hope for fans as the cameo by Cillian Murphy playing the son of David Warner's character from the original seemed to be laying groundwork for future installments. Also the DVD/Blu-ray release contained a bonus scene that appeared to serve as both an epilogue to "Tron: Legacy" and a prologue to a third film. However it wasn't clear if that was something left over from the original plans that were now scrapped or if it really indicated a future for the franchise. The hiring of DiGilio to write the script makes it clear that Disney isn't finished with "Tron" quite yet.

DiGilio will be replacing the writing team behind "Tron: Legacy," Adam Horowitz and Adam Kitsis. Normally replacing the screenwriters in this fashion would indicate a desire for a new direction and voice for the series, but that's not necessarily the case here. Horowitz and Kitsis were expected to come back and write the sequel, but when Disney didn't make the third film official right away they found other work writing a new series for ABC. DiGilio seems like an odd choice at first due to his very scant writing resume. After penning Disney's sled dog adventure "Eight Below" he created the ABC series "Traveler" which only lasted for eight episodes. The choice to hire DiGilio makes a little more sense when one realizes that he came out of Disney's own writing program.

The commissioning of a script for a third "Tron" film does not make it a sure thing. If DiGilio is not able to produce a screenplay to Disney's liking it may stall the project further. There's another factor at play as well: Disney's upcoming TV series "Tron: Uprising" which will be premiering on Disney XD sometime next year. Should that series fail it may cause Disney to pull the plug on another film. It's also unclear as to whether Joseph Kosiniski would return to direct any potential sequel, as well as what cast members might be returning. For now fans will have to wait for word of a finished script and whether or not Disney is happy with it.