It wasn't that long ago that we heard Disney was about to greenlight a third Tron movie.
It made financial sense. The last movie may have been expensive to make — it cost Disney $170 million — but Tron: Legacy was a hit, raking in a little more than $400 million globally. Its stunning, glass-and-neon world was like nothing movie-goers had ever seen before, and it was a fertile land eager for exploration and fleshing out. Director Joseph Kosinski was on board, and it was believed that stars Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde would return as well.
Then, just last week, Disney pulled the plug, announcing that there would be no third Tron after all. No one knows why it was canceled, though some have speculated that an over-full movie schedule could be to blame. With so many Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and other movies already in the pipeline, maybe the budget isn't there for another expensive blockbuster. Others believe that Tomorrowland's disappointing box office turned Disney's interest in live-action science fiction frosty.
Whatever the Mouse House's reasons, Tron fans aren't taking it on the chin. One fan named Lucas Lowman has launched a Change.org petition to get Disney to reconsider and get Tron 3 made. His goal is rather modest, at just 15,000 signatures. At the time of this writing, Lowman is already almost there after just a few days.
The thing is, Disney isn't going to pay attention to 15,000 signatures. For the modern blockbuster to be considered a success, its opening weekend has to boast theater attendees in the tens of millions. And again, that's just opening weekend — and only here in the U.S. 15,000 is such a tiny fraction of that, it's not even a blip.
There's nothing wrong with petitioning to get Tron 3 relaunched. Tron: Legacy was an underrated gem worthy of a sequel. But without millions of signatures, the notion isn't going to show up on Disney's radar.
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