Top Gun: Maverick Director Disowns 2025's Biggest Flop, Says It's Not His Sequel

Tron: Ares finally arrived, but if you were expecting Joseph Kosinski to pick up where Tron: Legacy left off, that is not the movie Disney made. The Top Gun: Maverick director, who kicked off his feature career with Legacy back in 2010, is pretty blunt about it: Ares is not his sequel.

So what did Kosinski actually say?

"I don't really see it as a sequel. This definitely used elements of a movie I worked on, called 'Tron: Ascension', in terms of maybe some of the set pieces and visuals, but it really inverted the story and told it from a completely different point of view. So, I see it more like a parallel story as opposed to a sequel. But I'm thrilled that what Steve Lisberger created in 1982 still resonates today."

That is Kosinski to Empire Magazine, and it lines up with what ended up on screen. He is credited as an executive producer on Tron: Ares, directed by Joachim Ronning, but he did not work on the script.

The road not taken: Tron 3 that almost was

Right after Legacy, Disney had a Kosinski-led follow-up on the table called Tron: Ascension. Then the company went all-in on Marvel and Star Wars, and Tron slipped to the back burner. Legacy made $399 million worldwide on a $200 million budget, which was treated as underwhelming at the time. Funny how that looks different now.

Back in 2017, Kosinski laid out his plan to Collider, and it was ambitious: start in the real world, dive into the Grid in the middle, then let the story spill fully into reality by the end. The key idea was programs crossing over into our world, blurring the human-machine divide. It was a clear, direct continuation of what Legacy teased in its final moments.

What Ares kept, and what it didn’t

Kosinski says Ares borrows a handful of visual notions and set-piece concepts from his canceled Ascension, but the perspective flips so hard it becomes a different thing altogether. Hence his framing: parallel story, not sequel. That little bit of behind-the-scenes context actually makes the movie make more sense.

How Ares fared

For the third Tron film, Disney tapped Joachim Ronning, with Jared Leto leading a cast that includes Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, and Gillian Anderson. The reception and the money side were rough.

• Box office: $142 million worldwide on a reported $180 million budget
• Rotten Tomatoes: 53%
• Runtime: 1h 59m
• Director: Joachim Ronning
• Cast: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson

That performance put Ares among 2025’s bigger commercial faceplants. Meanwhile, Legacy’s once-maligned $399 million suddenly looks downright healthy by comparison.

Would Kosinski’s version have landed better?

Honestly, maybe. Kosinski already proved he can revive a legacy brand and still make it feel new: Top Gun: Maverick was a phenomenon, and his racing movie F1 turned into a legit box office hit. With Tron, he modernized the 1982 original while keeping its DNA intact, and that balance is exactly what Ares wrestles with after shifting to a fresh angle.

More importantly, he had a long-term road map. Ascension wasn’t a reset; it would have expanded the universe in a way Legacy set up on purpose. You can see the version of Tron 3 that grows the saga rather than rebranding it midstream. Whether Disney would have gotten the same visual fireworks out of a tighter, clearer story is the what-if that hangs over Ares.

Where things stand now

Kosinski is happy the world Steve Lisberger built in 1982 still has juice. He is just being honest that Ares is not the story he was trying to tell. If you want to check it out for yourself, Tron: Ares is currently available to buy or rent on Prime Video.

Do you think giving Kosinski the keys again would have saved Tron 3, or was the franchise always going to zig this direction?