By See what I did there? Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that his ‘grapevine of industry insiders’ are telling him that Disney are very close to greenlighting a sequel to Tron Legacy, a film warmly received by Flixist back in December. While the film hasn’t been the gargantuan financial hit the studio might have been hoping for, it has been a steady money spinner and is nearing the $300million mark on a reported $170million budget. That’s not even taking into account the film’s enormous marketing potential for toys and spin-offs: an animated TV series called Tron Uprising is being prepared for release in 2012 on the Disney XD network.
The film itself also bears out the idea that a sequel was always part of the plan should the film be successful. Cillian Murphy pops up in an uncredited cameo as Edward Dillinger, son to the villain of the original film. It seems unlikely that Disney would waste casting a relatively well-known actor as a character so relevant to the series’ fanbase, only to drop him after such a small amount of screentime.
Although the film was not greeted with much joy by critics, achieving only an average of 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences have been much more enthusiastic (the RT reader average is 70%) and reactions to the IMAX screenings, special effects and Daft Punk soundtrack have been especially strong. Let’s just hope they don’t try and bring back that dead-eyed CGI Jeff Bridges.
[via Ain’t It Cool News]