'Tron: Ares': Release date, plot, cast, & everything we know

By Fran Ruiz last updated May 27, 2025
Disney is returning to the Grid with "Tron: Ares" in 2025, but the threat may be in the real world this time around.



Grid is live, initiate Tron: Ares.

Despite Tron: Legacy's less-than-desirable box office performance more than a decade ago (given its $170 million budget), Disney is booting up the Grid again in 2025 for Tron 3; that's right, Tron: Ares is downloading soon to the big screen.

A follow-up to Legacy had actually been in the works for a good while, as the franchise has proven successful in other media and Disney Parks. However, crafting the right story was difficult, and so Tron 3 went through several iterations until the company felt good about it and cast Jared Leto in the lead role. Will this turn out alright or be another failed refresh of a dusty movie series that perhaps was never that big to begin with? We'll find out soon enough.

Of course, Tron: Ares won't be the only sci-fi blockbuster coming from Disney in 2025, with several of its studios leaning hard on the genre: There's Disney's Lilo & Stitch live-action remake Pixar's Elio, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Predator: Badlands, and Avatar: Fire and Ash.

With Predator: Badlands, Zootopia 2, and Avatar: Fire and Ash set to arrive right after, we're not expecting a release date shift in Disney's schedule unless the threequel hits a snag or the strategy is reworked due to external factors.

Tron: Ares will release exclusively in theaters on October 10, 2025. It'll also be taking over as many IMAX screens as possible. If you're staying at home, you probably won't be able to watch it on VOD, physical formats, and Disney Plus until early 2026.

Watch Tron and Tron Legacy now on Disney+.
Watch Tron and Tron Legacy now on Disney+. And, when it's available, you can watch Tron: Ares on Disney+ as well.


(Image credit: Disney)
Little is known about the plot of Tron: Ares until marketing starts to boot up and throw previews our way via magazines, stills, or trailers. That said, Disney has already shared a teaser trailer and an official (but brief) synopsis that reads 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."

We know that Jared Leto is playing the titular Ares, the "highly sophisticated program" looking for something in the real world. Jeff Bridges is returning as Kevin Flynn, but it hasn't been confirmed whether he has a large role or is just back as a glorified cameo.

For curious newbies: The original Tron (1982) followed Kevin Flynn, a computer programmer and video game developer who found himself transported inside the software world of a huge computer. His adventure involved interacting with programs to escape and, of course, included the iconic Light Cycles. The late 2010 sequel, Legacy, followed Sam (Flynn's son) responding to a message from his long-lost father. Inside the Grid, he had to team up with the algorithm Quorra and other characters to stop the evil program Clu from, you guessed it, invading the real world.

Information is limited, but for now what we do know is that Tron: Ares will split its runtime between the real world and the Grid. This'll be a tricky balancing act, as the previous Tron movies' main strength was how stylish and distinct their representation of a digital world was. With much of the focus being elsewhere, that plot and those characters better be good; if the teaser trailer is any indication, at least the stakes seem pretty high and that the visuals won't disappoint.



Tron: Ares has received one teaser trailer so far. The first preview shows us short glimpses of the rebooted Grid, an incursion (and later a full-blown invasion) into the real world which almost feels alien in nature, and citizens, law enforcement, and some high-profile actors looking confused. Until we get a deeper look at the movie, we'll be scratching our heads too. Watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/9KVG_X_7Naw


(Image credit: Disney)

‘Wednesday’ Season 2 Teaser: Jenna Ortega Returns as Netflix Sets Two-Part Release Date Starting in August
By Jack Dunn
Apr 23, 2025



Netflix has released the first teaser and a handful of new images for “Wednesday” Season 2, starring Jenna Ortega and launching on the streamer in two parts on August 6 and September 3.

According to an official series logline, the show follows “Wednesday Addams’ years as a student, when she attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a killing spree, and solve the mystery that embroiled her parents.”

Ortega, who is also producing the second season, returns as the titular “Addams Family” daughter. She is joined by Emma Myers (Enid Sinclair), Joy Sunday (Bianca Barclay), Moosa Mostafa (Eugene), Georgie Farmer (Ajax), Victor Dorobantu (Thing), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Morticia Addams), Luis Guzmán (Gomez Addams), Isaac Ordonez (Pugsley Addams), Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo (Deputy Ritchie Santiago), Jamie McShane (Sheriff Donovan Galpin) and Fred Armisen (Uncle Fester).

New series regulars for Season 2 include Steve Buscemi (“The Big Lebowski”), Billie Piper (“Scoop”), Evie Templeton (“Return to Silent Hill”), Owen Painter (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) and Noah Taylor (“Park Avenue”). Christopher Lloyd (“The Addams Family”), Joanna Lumley (“Absolutely Fabulous”), Thandiwe Newton (“Westworld”), Frances O’Connor (“The Twelve”), Haley Joel Osment (“Somebody I Used to Know”), Heather Matarazzo (“The Princess Diaries”) and Joonas Suotamo (“The Acolyte”) also join the new season in guest star roles. Lady Gaga is also appearing in a mystery role.

Tim Burton returns as director alongside Paco Cabezas and Angela Robinson. “Wednesday” co-creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar serve as showrunners and executive produce with Burton, Ortega, Natalie Testa, Steve Stark, Andrew Mittman, Tommy Harper, Karen Richards, Kayla Alpert, Jonathan Glickman, Gail Berman and Meredith Averill. MGM Television produces.


Wednesday. (L to R) Joonas Suotamo as Lurch, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia Addams, Jenna Ortega as Wednesday, Isaac Ordonez aș Pugsley Addams, Thing, Luis Guzmán as Gomez Addams in episode 201 of Wednesday. Cr. Helen Sloan/Netflix © 2025

Ladies & Gentlemen: The Most Terrifying Movie Of The Year
Madison Medeiros
January 30, 2018, 11:45 AM



Horror fans have been fortunate over the past year with a bevy of creepy entertainment offerings, including Academy Award-nominated film Get Out and the trippy Netflix series Black Mirror. However, true lovers of the genre can never never really get enough of a fright fix. Thankfully, the brilliant minds over at A24 (The Witch, Split) have introduced Hereditary, a film so shockingly good that some are saying it's "the most disturbing and terrifying" thing they've seen in years.
According to a press release, the film, which was written and directed by Ari Aster and debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, tells the story of a family whose "cryptic and increasingly terrifying" ancestral secrets begin to reveal themselves following the passing of the family matriarch. Throughout the bone-chilling trailer, star Toni Collette grapples with her loss while she and the rest of her family begin to unravel into chaos — we're talking people walking upside-down on walls, birds flying into windows, people getting set on fire, and a whole slew of other unexplainable events.

Though this particular movie mom seems, well, unhinged, there's no doubt Collette will deliver a compelling performance. Her portrayal of stressed-out single mom Lynn Sear in The Sixth Sense was simultaneously heartbreaking and horrifying. We can only imagine what she'll bring to the table as the one who witnesses paranormal phenomena.

Perhaps the scariest part of Hereditary? We have to wait until June 8, 2018 for the film to hit theaters.

https://youtu.be/V6wWKNij_1M

Acclaimed Horror Thriller ‘Oddity’ Gets Digital Steaming Premiere Date
ByTim Lammers, Contributor.  I cover Hollywood and entertainment.

Aug 04, 2024, 01:48pm EDT

IFC FIlms/Shudder/Colm Hogan
Oddity—an indie horror thriller widely embraced by critics—is coming soon to digital streaming.


Moviegoers have been treated to several horror releases in spring and summer of 2024, including Late Night with the Devil, Abigail, Tarot, The Strangers: Chapter 1 MaXXXine and Longlegs. The latest horror film to hit theaters is Oddity, which came out in limited release on July 19.

The official synopsis for Oddity reads, “When Dani is brutally murdered at the remote country house that she and her husband Ted are renovating, everyone suspects a patient from the local mental health institution, where Ted is a doctor. However, soon after the tragic killing, the suspect is found dead.

“A year later, Dani’s blind twin sister Darcy, a self-proclaimed psychic and collector of cursed items, pays an unexpected visit to Ted and his new girlfriend, Yana. Convinced that there was more to her sister's murder than people know, Darcy has brought with her the most dangerous items from her cursed collection to help her exact revenge.”

According to When to Stream, Oddity will be released on digital streaming via premium video on demand on August 20. Pricing is yet to be announced. When the film becomes available on PVOD, viewers can expect to either purchase or rent Oddity on such digital platforms as Prime Video, AppleTV+ and VUDU.


How Did ‘Oddity’ Fare With Audiences And Critics?
Written and directed by Damian McCarthy and starring Carolyn Bracken as Dani/Darcy and Gwilym Lee (Bohemian Rhapsody) as Ted, Oddity premiered at the SXSW festival in March, where it won the Audience Award in the Midnighters category.

Rated R, Oddity opened in 790 theaters, per Deadline, on July 19. According to Box Office Mojo, Oddity, which was co-produced horror streamer Shudder and distributed by IFC Films, only played in North American theaters and earned $1.1 million. Information on the film’s production budget has not been released.

https://youtu.be/tLNDvnv8B3A

Lionsgate’s Runway AI Deal Could Reshape How Studios Greenlight Movies
Proprietary AI models could allow Lionsgate execs to watch a rough draft of a movie before they make greenlight decisions.
By Brian Welk

The dam broke. That’s how several artificial intelligence experts who spoke to IndieWire described the news of Lionsgate‘s partnership with AI research firm Runway. While the deal is the first of its kind with a major Hollywood studio, it’s already likely that other studios will follow suit. One source speculated that almost all studios are weighing the option, but are reluctant to go public.

Lionsgate was also reluctant to explain why they’re heavily investing in allowing Runway to build exclusive AI models on its own film and TV library. Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns cited its uses in the “pre-production and post-production process” and that AI can be a tool for “augmenting, enhancing, and supplementing our current operations.”


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That could mean almost anything, but Reid Southern, a concept artist on the original “The Hunger Games,” had a clear take. “This is the first step in trying to replace artists and filmmakers,” he tweeted.

UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer at a conference Thursday called the Runway deal “concerning” for artists: “If I’m an artist and I’ve made a Lionsgate movie, now suddenly that Lionsgate movie is going to be used to help build out an LLM for an AI company, am I going to be compensated for that?”

Also noted: After the snafu of the first “Megalopolis” trailer, Lionsgate already has a shaky track record in bespoke AI.

Deal terms specifically restrict Runway from building a public model based on the Lionsgate library. And since Runway’s specialty is text-to-video generators rather than LLMs (large language models) like ChatGPT, sources IndieWire spoke to said it’s unlikely that this arrangement will focus on script generation.

According to an individual with knowledge of the deal, top of mind for Lionsgate is opportunities with pre-vis and storyboarding. For example, if Lionsgate is weighing a greenlight for “John Wick 5,” Runway could use the first four Wick movies and the spinoffs to train an AI text-to-video model. When prompted with a script for “John Wick 5,” that model could then generate a more realistic storyboard approximation of the film; leadership would use that to make their decision.

From a studio’s perspective, it looks like an extraordinary opportunity: In the always-uncertain, always-expensive world of filmmaking, who wouldn’t want an idea of how the end product will look before you commit to spending millions?


Sure. But is that AI storyboard version of “John Wick 5” now considered a blueprint? Is there any obligation for the non-AI creators to follow it?

That’s one of many would-be complications of the AI-generated version of “John Wick 5.” Presumably, there would be a renewed anxiety around hacking and piracy; there’s also the question of whether that AI version would look or sound like Keanu Reeves or any of the other stars. If so, per SAG-AFTRA’s guidelines, Lionsgate would need to negotiate that in advance.

The director-as-author question only gets stickier from there. Fable Studios’ Edward Saatchi theorized that Lionsgate could one day make such a model available to fans who want to create their own user-generated content inspired by a new movie. Offering the possibility to make their own scenes or insert themselves into the story could drive new revenue.

“Hollywood stops being top-down, focused on passive content and auteur driven, and becomes interactive, bottom-up, and decentralized, where there’s one canonical version of a show or movie, but the fans are able to make their own,” said Saatchi, “There’s more of a dialog between the people making the canonical shows and the people making the fan-driven shows, which means that their content does move more towards social media and interactive media.”

It’s not surprising that Saatchi might view the Lionsgate strategy from that angle; this summer, he announced Showrunner, an app that lets users create animated episodes that look like “South Park” and other properties. It’s also possible that studios could see the possibility of choose-your-own adventure as an exciting revenue stream, auteur theory be damned.

A director might also use an AI model to generate alternate versions of a scene and envision other story or visual possibilities, but per DGA and WGA contracts, directors and writers have the right to refuse to use AI tech and could not be able to be replaced by it.

Lionsgate had no comment for this story.

For Runway, this deal means high-value, high-resolution training data that improves its own tech along with the likelihood of a fee for each model it generates.

Most of all, Runway now has a foothold in Hollywood. Traditional VFX houses are also building their own AI models and until now they kept Silicon Valley companies on the outside looking in. Lionsgate is the first to leave the door open.