Tron: Ares: Cillian Murphy rumored to be reprising Tron: Legacy role

According to scooper Daniel Richtman via his Patreon, Cillian Murphy is set to reprise his Tron: Legacy role in the upcoming Tron: Ares as the villain. You should consider this to be a rumor for the time being, but Richtman does have a pretty good track record with these scoops.

If it’s been a while since you last watched Tron: Legacy, you might not even remember that Cillian Murphy was in it. He played Edward Dillinger Jr., the head of ENCOM’s software design team and the son of former ENCOM senior executive Ed Dillinger, the character played by David Warner in the original Tron. The role was more of a cameo, but felt like it was setting the stage for something bigger in the next movie.

Jared Leto is still attached to star in Tron: Ares, and Disney has been talking with Joachim Rønning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) to direct. A report from earlier in the year claimed that production was looking to get underway in Vancouver this August, but we haven’t heard all that much since.

The road to another Tron movie has been a long one. Even before the release of Tron: Legacy, a third film was in the early stages of development. Disney greenlit the project with Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski set to direct and Garret Hedlund and Olivia Wilde returning, but in 2015, they pulled the plug. Kosinski later suggested that Disney scrapped the sequel because of their new toys — Marvel and Star Wars. “When I made Tron: Legacy, they didn’t own Marvel; they didn’t own Star Wars,” Kosinski said. “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 not the weird art student with black fingernails in the corner — that was Tron.“

Jared Leto gave an update about the project last year. “I’m a super fan of Tron, and we are working hard on Tron with our incredible partners at Disney,” Leto said. “Just an amazing group of creative people. We’re getting closer. We’re getting closer and closer, and who knows? Something may be [coming] sooner than later.”

Cillian Murphy will next be seen starring as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which opens in theaters on July 21st. Would you like to see Cillian Murphy return for Tron: Ares?