When Disney announced a third film in the “Tron” franchise, we sat fully forward in our chairs. Think the Vince McMahon getting excited meme. With each new reveal for “Tron: Ares” – the creative team, casting (minus Jared Leto)- the impending thrill progressed. Everything peaked when Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of industrial pioneers Nine Inch Nails were confirmed to be handling the score.
“It’s different [from the previous Tron scores], and in places, perhaps takes a bigger swing for what music can do in cinema,” Ross told Empire Magazine in their upcoming “Tron: Ares” issue. “Without sounding fucking pompous. I mean, that was a goal. You know, if you’re going to do it, then you may as well take a big swing.”
Apparently the pair had been been courted for the project by President of Walt Disney Music Tom MacDougall sometime during their Oscar-winning turn on Pixar’s “Soul.” “A couple of years ago, he [MacDougall] came by the studio and said, Do you think you guys would be interested in scoring Tron?’ He didn’t even finish the sentence, I was like, ‘Fuck yes, we’d want to do that.’ He said, ‘How would you feel about if it was credited as Nine Inch Nails, versus Trent and Atticus?’ We weren’t expecting to hear that question.”
Considering how imediate the response of the NIN reveal was, it was probably the right choice.
But what about the actual score?
“I’ll give a few spoilers: there’s not one second of orchestra in our score,” Reznor teased. “It sounds precise and unpleasant at times. It’s not an atonal, punishing score, but we spent a lot of time thinking about the undertones of what’s happening in the story. The concept of artificial life infused with feelings and emotions and a sense of questioning their purpose and their replaceability, their lack of soul, in some ways. We kind of riffed on that.”
“Tron: Ares” will hit theaters October 10th, 2025.
