TRON: Ares Trailer Hints at AI Soldier With a Personal Mission

Disney is teasing its highly anticipated showcase at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 this week by releasing an all-new trailer for TRON: Ares, the latest addition to the classic sci-fi franchise. The new trailer for the movie, directed by Joachim Rønning, heralds a new era in the TRON story, one in which the narrative shifts away from the virtual world of the Grid and into the real world.

The last time audiences visited the Grid, it was to prevent the nefarious plans of Clu, a Grid program, to merge the digital and the real worlds in TRON: Legacy. The 2010 follow-up to TRON found Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the son of TRON OG Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), thwarting Clu’s plans and absconding with Quorra (Olivia Wilde), a hybrid program on the Grid called an isomorphic algorithm (ISO), pursued by Clu for deletion.

Filmmakers were initially set to resume this story directly after the end of TRON: Legacy. The third TRON film was officially greenlit by Disney in October 2010 with a script that would have followed Sam and Quorra as the latter goes by his real name: Quorra. Flynn takes over his late father’s company, ENCOM, in the initial film. However, the script development process was slow, and the studio officially canceled the TRON sequel in 2015. The decision was reportedly affected by the performance of one of Disney’s other sci-fi properties in Tomorrowland, which Disney shelved soon after release.

TRON: Ares is also the latest to fall victim to delays. The film first experienced production holdups during the pandemic before being further delayed during Hollywood’s more recent strikes and shutdowns. TRON: Ares is now finished and will release theatrically later this year.

In a synopsis shared by Disney, TRON: Ares is described as follows: “TRON: Ares follows a highly sophisticated Program, Ares, who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first encounter with A.I. beings.” Actor Jared Leto stars as Ares and is joined by Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger and Greta Lee as Eve Kim. Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, Sarah Desjardins, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, and Gillian Anderson also star. Bridges also reprises his role from Legacy as Flynn, while the film’s music is by industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails.

New Trailer Brings an “Ultimate Soldier” to Earth

In the first trailer for the film, released in April, audiences got to see the usual bells and whistles: the neon grid lines, lightcycles, large-scale data structures, and the digital worlds that the TRON universe is known for, but not much about the narrative and story. This second trailer for the film, released this week, maintains these elements while giving the audience a better look at the story and its stakes.

The trailer opens with what appears to be the setting of a keynote presentation in a technology convention center or a start-up office. Julian Dillinger takes to the stage in front of his audience and makes a statement to the throng of attendees. He asks: “So much talk of AI and big tech today. Virtual worlds, what are they going to look like? When will we get there? Well, folks. We’re not going there. They are coming here.”

Dillinger goes on to introduce his “ultimate soldier.” This so-called ultimate soldier is Ares, with Dillinger seemingly having the hubris to go on about how Ares could be bested on the battlefield. The business mogul says, “He’s biblically strong, lightning fast, and supremely intelligent. And if he is struck down on the battlefield…” — and here, Dillinger proceeds to punch Ares down on stage in front of the audience — “…I will simply make you another.” The power move cements the character of Dillinger as a cutthroat technocratic business leader convinced that he can dictate the rules of the future of A.I.

This, however, may not be the case. It might not be the case at all. While Dillinger may seem to be in control of this Ares program, he might not be in control in the way he believes. Instead, the program, on a self-directed mission, is on a quest to look for a nebulous target, which he cannot quite define. It, therefore, leads to an interesting philosophical query into the nature of free will and agency, one that the film no doubt will explore, especially when Kevin Flynn shows up in the virtual world to question, “A malfunctioning program who wants to live, why is that?”

Fans of TRON will also have a blast at the return of Bridges’ Flynn, while Leto’s Ares, a non-human being transplanted into the real world, continues to push new thematic ideas about the man-machine boundary that the franchise has always been known for. The trailers promise high-octane set-pieces but also present an intriguing and thought-provoking concept. The trailer also does not disappoint in terms of visual sheen and polish. Rønning, in the trailer at least, is once again able to marry large-scale, visually stunning virtual landscapes with more grounded, real-world settings in ways that are not necessarily as visually cohesive but just as breathtaking.

Scored to what one can imagine will be an atmospheric Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, TRON: Ares is shaping up to be both an old and a new TRON, a property that we have come to expect. Over a decade in the making, TRON: Ares is finally here. In theaters, October 10, 2025, TRON: Ares is poised to be the nexus of the digital and the real worlds like never before.