This week's big movie release, as you surely must know by now, is Tron: Legacy, Disney's massively expensive attempt to revive the franchise that started with 1982's Tron and turned into a merchandising and video game success far more profitable than the original movie itself. That tells you something about their hopes for the movie, which has been marketed extensively for nearly three years now, and has promotional tie-ins with everything from Adidas sneakers to Playboy. Tron: Legacy is what Disney is hoping will be the definition of a four-quadrant movie, the kind of expensive blockbuster in the vein of Avatar or Pirates of the Caribbean that everyone can agree to see.
What's interesting about Tron: Legacy, though, is that it's not a natural four-quadrant movie at all, based on a cult geek film from the 80s and promoted heavily for years now at Comic Con. My regular podcasting pals Dave Gonzales and Matt Patches and I have been watching the Tron: Legacy marketing effort for years now, and though we've all seen the film now and have some thoughts on that, we wanted to talk about Disney's big gamble in making the film, their attempts to market it to a wide audience, and why we think they made a mistake in trying to convince people it's the next Avatar.
Take a listen below, and as always, if you like what you hear, let us know! Find me (@kateyrich), Dave (@da7e) and Matt (@misterpatches) on Twitter. You can also read my review of Tron: Legacy here.
