Tron: Ares star Jared Leto has opened up about how long it has taken the eagerly anticipated sequel to arrive on cinema screens.
The third film in the Tron franchise, which is releasing on October 10, follows “a highly sophisticated Program” known as Ares (Leto) who, according to the official synopsis, is “sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first encounter with AI being.”
The film was initially announced in 2017 and has taken almost 10 years to arrive in cinemas, but lead star Leto thinks that, despite the long wait, the film is still relevant.
“In a way, it is coming out at a perfect time when AI is a huge conversation,” he told Digital Spy at the film’s London premiere. “We started working on the movie nine or 10 years ago, and nobody was talking about AI unless you were a researcher or an academic or something.
“Now everybody’s talking about everybody’s using it, whether they know it or not; it’s all part of our lives in some way. So I think it’s interesting that the film is coming out at that time.”
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Leto compared the third movie to the original Tron, which came out in 1982, at a time when “people were talking about computers and video games” in a similarly timely fashion.
“I think we got pretty lucky that it’s touching on a conversation that everybody’s having,” the star continued.
“It’s also a movie that’s big and fun and filled with adventure and excitement, heart and humour and Jeff Bridges. There’s a lot of fun to be had there, and I hope people enjoy it like I did when I was a kid sitting in that theatre in 1982.”
Leto’s co-star, Jodie Turner-Smith, added that the cast and crew had conversations about AI when they began filming. “We filmed this a year and a half ago, and they managed to make it so prescient in a way,” she explained.
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“We were in the conversation of AI that we hadn’t been when the film was at its origination – I mean, Jared’s been pushing this boulder up the hill for nearly a decade – but they managed to place this film somewhere that was in a conversation that stayed current and relevant, and that’s actually incredible.
“We don’t have any answers for AI in the state of the world, but we are living in the question, and we’re asking people to be in the question with us about ethics, about how we keep AI human-centered.”
Smith said that “it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom” if humans can use AI to “change the world for the better”.
“What happens if this technology is in the hands of someone who doesn’t have any ethics, like Julian Dillinger, played by the wonderful Evan Peters. So it’s great, it’s relevant, it’s current, and it’s important.”
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Lee mused that “so much has changed daily” since they began shooting Tron: Ares 18 months ago, and that it has been an “honour” to get the film out to audiences.
“I think it’s an honour for us to get to share a movie that is so timely and is touching on such contemporary themes and asking the question, how can we ensure that this tech and all of these innovations can offer up some good and how can we make sure that it’s human-centric.”
Alongside Leto and Smith, the film stars Greta Lee, Gillian Anderson, Evan Peters, Jeff Bridges, and Cameron Monaghan.
Tron: Ares is released in UK cinemas on October 10.
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