‘Past Lives’ Breakout Greta Lee Lands Leading Role in ‘Tron 3’ (Exclusive)
Greta Lee, who is generating much buzz for her role in the acclaimed romantic drama Past Lives, has logged into Tron: Ares, the newest installment of Disney’s cybertech adventure movie series.
In what is described as a leading role, Lee now joins Jared Leto and Evan Peters in the feature, which is gearing up for an August shoot in Vancouver. Joachim Ronning, who helmed Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and co-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, is in the director’s chair.
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Disney released the original Tron in 1982, with Jeff Bridges starring as video game designer Kevin Flynn, who is transported inside his own creation and teams up with Tron, a security program played by Bruce Boxleitner. A 2010 sequel took on a generational approach to the story, bringing back Bridges while adding Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde.
While those movies were not exactly box office hits, the unique aesthetic, the worlds, and the popularity of the Disneyworld ride has the studio hoping that third time is the charm to turn the property into a bonafide movie franchise.
While the two previous movies were largely set inside the world of computers and programs, the script for Ares, written by Jesse Wigutow and Jack Thorne, is said to focus on the emergence of a sentient program that crosses over into the human world that is not ready for contact.
Leto is Ares, the manifestation of the program, with Lee starring as a video game programmer and tech company CEO who has to go on the run in order to protect her world-changing technology.
Justin Springer and Jeffrey Silver are producing as are Emma Ludbrook and Leto, the latter through their production company Paradox. Russell Allen is executing producing.
Born to Korean immigrant parents, Lee has been acting for over a dozen years but it’s only recently that her star has been on a comet-speed ascent. The actress had scene-stealing roles in Netflix’s acclaimed comedy Russian Doll as well as Apple TV’s The Morning Show. And she voices a key character in current box office champion, Spider-Man: Across the Universe.
Past Lives sees her torn romantically between the present and the past in the A24 release that has become one of the best reviewed movies of the year and is generating awards buzz for the Los Angeles native.
Lee, who has also done Broadway work, is repped by UTA, Range Media, and Jackoway Tyerman.
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