Report from "Tron Legacy" panel at Fan Expo, plus Q & A with co-producer Justin Springer

By John C.

I just got back from Fan Expo at the Toronto Metro Convention Centre, where I attended the Tron Legacy panel. The presentation started with an introduction by the Space channel’s Ajay Fry. Then the co-producer of Tron Legacy, Justin Springer, came out and spoke about the upcoming film, and showed a slide show of concept art, which included 2 slow motion videos of the martial artists who provided the stunts for the disc fight scenes. He also unveiled an exclusive clip where Sam Flynn (Garett Hedlund) goes into an old arcade and finds the Tron game. After that they showed the Light Cycle test sequence which can be viewed online here, but was very cool to see on a big screen. He also took questions from the audience. All in all, this looks like it will be an awesome film. All press attending the event also received a very nice promotional Tron Legacy t-shirt. (Pictured to the right)

Here is the brief interview that I did with Justin Springer afterwards:

My first question is, what is the estimated budget for the film?

We definitely don’t talk about budgets for the movie, so I definitely can’t give you that answer. Sorry.

Will there be a re-release of the original Tron?

Disney will definitely do something with it, I don’t really know what they’re planning marketing wise, whether it will be a theatrical release or a DVD re-release, I’m not exactly sure. But I think they’ll definitely do something with the original film.

How do you think this compares to another big, anticipated film like Avatar which also has a lot of special effects and CG?

I’m really excited to see Avatar - I think it will be pretty tremendous. We used a lot of similar technologies, there are certain things that they did in their movie, that we’re doing in our movie. They’re both shot in 3D, there are a lot of similarities in the technological process for both movies. But I don’t know, I’m independently excited to see both movies.

So am I... So what is the exact release date of Tron Legacy?

The movie hasn’t been dated yet, so it’s up in the air, hopefully we’ll know that soon. We're hoping it will be released at the end of 2010.

Okay, ‘cause you kept saying 16-18 months from now.

Yeah. Which is around then. We’re just putting it out there.

I look forward to it. Thanks!

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On the main floor of Fan Expo, they have a very cool model of the Light Cycle which rotates on a turntable. Trust me, it’s the best thing in the whole exposition:

Pictured below is the program book for Fan Expo, the posters I got from E1’s booth, the very cool flashing Green Lantern ring I got from the DC Comics' booth, and the 9 postcards from Alliances’ booth.

Fan Expo started today, and runs through Saturday and Sunday. You can get more information here.