Jeff Bridges Returning To His Most Iconic Science Fiction Role

It seems Jeff Bridges is going to outlast us all. He began as Starman, then played the football hunk in Against All Odds and won the hearts and minds of everyone around him in the 1970s and ‘80s. It doesn’t hurt that he seems to be a generally good guy, too. 

We’ve had no news of affairs; indeed, he’s been madly in love with his wife and a proud father to his children for decades. And his movies keep getting better. Who else can jump from the role of ship’s captain in White Squall to a nutty professor in The Mirror Has Two Faces and to the hapless hero in The Big Lebowski in a matter of a few years? 

Tron, a science fiction movie released in 1982 that didn’t get great critical reception or do especially well at the box office, was just a blip on the screen of Bridges’ career, but it’s become a cult classic. The film follows a video game designer, Kevin Flynn (Bridges), whose intellectual property is stolen by a coworker. To get revenge, he hacks into the mainframe of his now ex-company’s computer system and finds himself sucked into the gaming system. 

There, he is forced to play deadly games against the computer alongside fellow captives. Fortunately, he finds his way out, wins control of the company, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except that Jeff Bridges will star in Tron: Ares, coming out in October 2025, a third film to continue this storyline, so clearly something went wrong. 

That “something” would be Tron: Legacy, which came out in 2010. It stars Garret Hedlund as Flynn’s son, Sam, now grown up and having taken over his father’s company after his father apparently disappeared 20 years earlier. Sam finds a way to break into the game where his father has been trapped all this time.

Tron: Legacy did much better than Tron, likely because of the cult following developed by the latter. Disney also did extensive marketing to generate excitement over this second movie, and it resulted in $400 million in revenue against a $170 million budget. But, again, critics gave the film mixed reviews. Mostly, critics and audiences alike find the films confusing and the storylines convoluted, with some reviews giving a backhanded compliment of calling it “an amazing Daft Punk music video. 

Jeff Bridges has casually announced that he will appear in Tron: Ares, which will also star Jared Leto. We don’t know much about what will happen in this installment, and Bridges himself says he’s not sure what his role will be. He notes that he’s interested in seeing what kind of technology the studio will be using and if he will be “age-reversed” again.