TRON: Ares Trailer Reveals Humanity’s First AI Encounter

San Diego Comic-Con is just a few days away, and Disney is teasing its marquee event with a brand-new TRON: Ares trailer. Directed by Joachim Rønning, TRON: Ares is the next chapter in the seminal science-fiction franchise, and the first film to move the world’s most famous franchise from inside the computer to the outside world.

The last time audiences visited the Grid was 2010’s TRON: Legacy, which was set 20 years after the original TRON, and starred Kevin Flynn’s son Sam Flynn, played by Garrett Hedlund. In Legacy, Sam thwarted Clu, the Grid’s malevolent Program, who had attempted to merge the real world and digital world. Sam also rescued a beautiful ISO (isomorphic algorithm) named Quorra (Olivia Wilde) from Clu, who was hunting her down for deletion.

Disney had intended to continue the story with a third TRON film. The project was greenlit in October 2010 and was set to show Sam and Quorra’s continuing adventures as Flynn takes over his father’s company, ENCOM. However, things stalled, and in 2015, the sequel was canceled due to Disney reportedly being discouraged by another of its sci-fi flops, Tomorrowland.

TRON made a return in 2020, as Disney announced plans to continue the franchise. But in turn, the film was now being helmed as a reboot and a stand-alone entry as opposed to the planned Legacy continuation. Script elements remained from earlier drafts, including a new, key AI character named Ares. After pandemic-related delays and production halt during Hollywood’s recent strikes, the film is now complete and will see a release this fall.

TRON: Ares Synopsis: “Ares, a highly sophisticated Program, is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission that will change the fate of mankind and mark the first encounter with A.I. beings.” Leto headlines the film as Ares, with Peters as Julian Dillinger and Greta Lee as Eve Kim. The cast also includes Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, Sarah Desjardins, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, and Gillian Anderson. Bridges reprises his role as Kevin Flynn, while the film’s music is scored by industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails.

New Trailer: An AI Sent to the Real World

TRON: Ares debuted its first trailer in April. It packed the visual punch audiences expected, with plenty of glowing neon grids, lightcycles, and arresting digital world environments, but offered little in terms of plot. The new trailer, released earlier this week, still has those signature elements in spades but reveals a bit more about the film.

The trailer opens in a conference room, as Julian Dillinger speaks to a crowd. Dillinger, a business titan at the forefront of next-gen technologies, makes some ominous pronouncements: “So much talk of AI and big tech these days. 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, played by Evan Peters, then reveals his “ultimate soldier,” named Ares. “He’s biblically strong, lightning fast, and supremely intelligent,” Dillinger boasts. “And if he is struck down on the battlefield…” Dillinger strikes Ares over the head and knocks him to the floor, interrupting himself to continue, “…I will simply make you another.” We learn Dillinger is a corporate titan who rules with an iron fist and sees Ares as a mere commodity to be exchanged, ordered around, and kept at his beck and call.

It also becomes clear that Ares may not be who Dillinger thinks he is. Ares is a program that has been sent to the real world on a mysterious mission, but his directive seems to have a larger purpose than his current handler imagines. The trailer ends with Flynn appearing in the Grid as Ares is on a personal quest to find “something he doesn’t understand.” Flynn turns to an unseen interlocutor and asks, “A malfunctioning program who wants to live, why is that?”

Fans of the original TRON will be happy to see Bridges as Flynn, but with the original story rebooted and Ares, played by Jared Leto, an AI program that has come into the real world, there will be some new variations on that age-old story of man vs. machine. Plus, as the characters in the trailer debate the philosophical question of what makes one “more human than the other,” the story also seems like it will have some large-scale fun with AI autonomy and responsibility.

Audiences can expect a film that looks as good as it sounds, with Rønning combining digital architecture and real-world locations, while Nine Inch Nails’ soundtrack fills out the visual textures. TRON: Ares will premiere at San Diego Comic-Con and hit theaters October 10, 2025.