Evan Peters, star of “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” and “Mare of Easttown,” is joining Jared Leto in “Tron: Ares,” the third film in Disney’s extremely long-lived cyberspace franchise.
Joachim Rønning (“Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”) will direct the film from a script by Jesse Wigutow. Production is set for August (an actors strike notwithstanding).
Along with his frequent appearances on FX’s “American Horror Story” anthology series, Peters played Peter Maximoff in several “X-Men” movies for 20th Century Fox (before the studio was acquired by Disney), starting with 2014’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past.”
The original “Tron,” starring Jeff Bridges, debuted in 1982 with groundbreaking innovations in digital visual effects. Originally a flop, the film generated a cult following, which eventually led to the 2010 sequel “Tron: Legacy,” starring Bridges, Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde. “Top Gun: Maverick” filmmaker Joseph Kosinski made his directorial debut with the film. He developed a sequel for several years but ultimately parted ways with Disney on the project in 2015.
“When I made ‘Tron: Legacy,’ they didn’t own Marvel; they didn’t own ‘Star Wars,’” Kosinski told Vulture in 2022. “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.’ And that’s OK.”
Two years later, Leto signed up to star and produce a third “Tron” movie, and he’s remained attached since. Justin Springer, Jeffrey Silver and Emma Ludbrook are also producing.
