Despite Kevin Flynn seemingly meeting his end in the final minutes of Tron: Legacy, Jeff Bridges is returning to the role he originated back in 1982 for Tron: Ares, one of the bigger tentpole releases on the 2025 movies schedule. While we still have no idea how Kevin fits into the story being anchored by Jared Leto’s title character, Bridges did recently look back at his time on Legacy, which was a positive experience for him overall. However, there was one aspect of the 2010 movie that he “wasn’t particularly fond” of how it turned out.
Along with sharing his reaction to Iron Man co-star Robert Downey Jr. returning to the MCU to play Doctor Doom, Bridges spent some time discussing Legacy during his conversation with Josh Horowitz. After the actor shared how Leto is “wonderful to work with,” Horowitz mentioned how he believes that there’s “no one more scanned in the metaverse more than Jeff Bridges,” and asked him if that “scares him a little bit” in this age of AI. That led to Bridges saying this:
I got scanned and in the computer for when we did Tron 2, Legacy, and I wasn’t particularly fond of that recreation of myself. I thought I looked more like Bill Maher than myself.
Jeff Bridges is referencing how in addition to reprising Kevin Flynn in Tron: Legacy, he also played Clu (Codified Likeness Utility), an advanced program that looked just like Kevin did in the late ‘80s and was designed to help him create the “perfect” computer system alongside Tron inside The Grid. In other words, Bridges was de-aged in order to bring Clu to life, with this being one of the earlier examples of digital technology being used to pull this off. Unfortunately, Bridges felt Clu looked less like himself and more like the host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher in his younger years. I can see where he’s coming from after gazing at the below image, although for me, it’s become more apparent now how artificial Bridges’ skin looks when he’s in Clu form.
The film and TV business has come a long way with digital de-aging in the decade and a half since Tron: Legacy was being put together. So obviously if it was being released now, Clu would not only look less artificial, but more accurate to how Jeff Bridges looked around the time he was starring in movies like Tucker: The Man and His Dream and The Fisher King. Then again, since Kevin Flynn’s role in Tron: Ares is shrouded in mystery, perhaps there’s the possibility that Bridges will once again be de-aged, and this time, hopefully the final product is more to his liking.
Hitting theaters on October 10, 2025, Tron: Ares follows a highly sophisticated program being sent from the digital world to the real world for a dangerous mission, which results in humanity coming into contact with AI beings for the first time. Jeff Bridges and Jared Leto are joined in Tron: Ares’ cast by Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Jodie Turned-Smith, Cameron Monaghan and Gillian Anderson, among others. While we wait for more news about the Joachim Rønning-directed movie, stream Tron and Tron: Legacy with your Disney+ subscription.
