Wish Disney Made that TRON Sequel? Blame Marvel and Star Wars

If you’ve been to Magic Kingdom in Disney World lately, you might have noticed some huge construction in Tomorrowland.

Tron construction is still underway in Magic Kingdom

A new roller coaster inspired by the TRON movies, called TRON Lightcycle Power Run, is coming to Disney World! This ride already exists in Shanghai Disney, and we’ve been following all of the construction updates on this new coaster! Those who want to prepare for this new ride can check out the original TRON film and the sequel to the original TRON movie, TRON: Legacy, which came out in 2010. But did you know that a 3rd TRON film was a possibility at one point? The director just shared why we haven’t seen a third installment yet.

In an interview with Vulture, TRON: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski, who also directed the new Top Gun sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, shared what happened to the planned TRON sequel, TRON: Ascension.

TRON Lightcycle Run

Kosinski shared that he had storyboarded and written TRON: Ascension in its entirety before it was ultimately cancelled. “I got so close. I really tried,” he said. Kosinski said that he was really excited about the concept “because it was inverting the idea: It was all that stuff coming into our world, and it was about the blending of the two.”

But Kosinski cites Disney’s acquisition of Star Wars and Marvel as the driving force behind TRON‘s cancellation, saying, “When I made Tron: Legacy, they didn’t own Marvel; they didn’t own Star Wars. We were the play for fantasy and science fiction. And once you’ve got those other things under your umbrella, it makes sense that you’re going to put your money into a known property…And that’s okay.”

Daisy Ridley in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

He said that Disney pulled the plug on TRON sometime after he “got close” to getting the sequel back in 2015. 2015 is the same year that Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens came out.

With the new ride coming to the Disney World, maybe interest in TRON will grow again and Disney will bring the franchise back to the big screen. Who knows?! Movies based on The Haunted Mansion and The Tower of Terror are currently in the works, so Disney is no stranger to making movies when a ride gets really popular!

We’ll be interested to see whether the TRON sequel gets any more interest in the future.