Video via GameTrailers.com.

We're all excited about Tron Legacy, but more so for the return of light cycles and less because of the script — but Universal has given Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (who've also written many episodes of Lost) the task of turning the Ouija Board flick into a film, which I'm assuming is a step above the Viewmaster Movie and a step below the Monopoly film. According to The Hollywood Reporter this is what they are basing the film on.

The studio is looking at the project as a supernatural action-adventure movie. It is possible that certain rules of the game - never use it alone, never use it in a graveyard, always say good-bye - figure into the plot.

Wait a minute, those were the rules????? I thought the rules were if your parents caught you talking to the devil board, you'd be locked in the basement for three days without any light, so the devil's magic would be washed out of your soul. And what about the rule of fucking with the person who brought said board by making it say horrible things, since they are most likely the only person not to be forcing the triangle to spell their will? Also, spelling is boring.

This whole thing is just a ploy to sell more board games that supposedly connect you to the spirit world. And we all know the only way to really talk to ghosts is with the professional Ghost Hunters team and a film crew, duh.

Talking to Coming Soon, Wilde said,

We shot some 20-hour days, we were wearing the suits, which are not easy to wear. I was doing a lot of my own stunts and training a lot of the time. Really pushing myself physically as well as mentally. It was an epic undertaking. It was a HUGE film to shoot in those few days. I was so proud to be a part of it. The morning that we wrapped it was an unbelievable feeling. We all just lost it. It was sunrise and we couldn't believe we were actually done... Now I have so much more empathy and respect for the people who've done it before me... and after. I don't write-off large sci-fi films so flippantly as I did. I look at anyone who's had to put on a rubber suit and I'm, like, "Oh wow, you're awesome! You survived!" (laughs) None of the suits are like our suits, though. Our suits have really risen to a new level of discomfort, but it's brilliant and well worth it. It's totally worth it.

Tron Legacy is scheduled for release December 17th, 2010.

Olivia is Wilde About Tron! [Coming Soon]

Star Trek 2:

Zoe "Uhura" Saldana says J.J. Abrams has promised her that Uhura will get her own fight scene, or at least some kind of action sequence, in the sequel. "I mean, just [let me] kick a guy in the groin or something!" [Cinematical]

Zombieland:

Some new stills focus on the female members of the zombie-killing foursome. [SpoilerTV-Movies]

Dollhouse:

Now that Echo has been re-integrated with her other personalities and started to retain her identity no matter what, things are going to get hairy. The dynamic between Echo and her "original" personality Caroline will be at the center of season two. And in the season opener, where she's married off to Jamie Bamber things go terribly wrong and Echo starts turning back into Caroline under stress. Which could be a good thing, or a bad thing. [E! Online]

Plus the network released some behind-the-scenes clips and interviews with the creators:

Fringe

TV Guide gives us a brief primer on the new season, including the alternate universe:

And EW interviews the cast, who talk about the growing relationships between the characters:

In the season opener, Olivia lets down a bit of her guard and has a few tender moments with Peter. And she even asks him for personal help. [EW]

Here's the official description for the season's third episode, "Fracture:"

Peter, Walter, Olivia and Broyles pursue a strange and deadly occurrence in Philadelphia where a bomb blew up inside a train station but left no trace of any explosive device. The perplexing and unexplained set of circumstances returns Walter to the lab to closely examine the human remains where he uncovers an unlikely energy source that triggered the explosion. With the explosive threat of more bombs and links to a classified military project, the intense investigation leads Olivia and Peter to Iraq.

[Fringe Spoilers]

And John Noble gives some more hints about the new season. [Fringe Television]

Supernatural:

Jeffrey Dean Morgan says he's eager to return to the role of the Winchester boys' daddy, if he can find the time. And he feels like his storyline on the show got cut too soon. He also casts doubt on rumors that a sixth season of Supernatural could feature an entirely new cast, rebooting the show without Jared Padalecki or Jensen Ackles. He htinsk those rumors are just designed to stir up the fans. [Sci Fi Wire]

New promo pics show Sam getting his groove back a little bit. [SpoilerTV]

FlashForward:

New cast promo pics focus on some of the characters besides Mark and Demetri... including Simon, played by Dominic Monaghan. [SpoilerTV]

Warehouse 13:

We'll be seeing more of the evil McPherson coming up. He's in the season finale, where we learn he has ties with two of the women of the Warehouse, making life a lot more difficult for them — and for Artie. [E! Online]

Eureka:

Taggart won't be in Friday's season finale, but actor Matt Frewer says he's in a "wait and see mode" about apperaing next season. [E! Online]

Heroes:

I don't think we've shown you this behind-the-scenes featurette for the returning show yet:

Smallville:

A few new TV spots for next week's season premiere:

Eastwick:

Some new clips from episode four, "Fleas And Casserole":

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown and Lauren Davis.

People talk about Comic Con as the place you go to create the next geek-entertainment sensations — and it's definitely true to some extent. But it's by no means that simple. Nerd tastemakers do get their first look at the next summer's movies, and they do start spreading buzz — but the event is probably best at helping smaller projects get more exposure. If a movie, TV show, comic or novel goes into Comic Con with tons of buzz already, the best you can hope for is simply to keep the momentum going.

Look at last year — Comic Con 2008 had a clear winner (Watchmen) and a clear loser (The Spirit). And the bad exposure at Comic Con definitely hurt The Spirit, but it's hard to argue the event helped Watchmen all that much. Meanwhile, Star Trek stayed away from Comic Con 2008, and did better than almost any movie that actually did panels there. (Looking back, Wolverine did a panel, and it grossed less than Trek domestically.)

So the io9 brain trust got together and figured out which projects we feel came out of Comic Con with more buzz than they had going in. It's highly subjective, but these are the ones we heard more excitement about after SDCC was over.

#1: District 9

This film excited us more than any other. District 9 went into Comic Con with a ton of viral marketing, and not much else. After a full year of wacky alien segregationist signage (Comic Con 2008 was plastered with the stuff, and now it's on bus shelters) we were starting to wonder if this film was just an excuse for an ARG. Then we got to see the actual movie — and suddenly Moon wasn't the only standout indie movie of the year. It didn't hurt, too, that producer Peter Jackson put his considerable mojo to work promoting it. (We managed to corner Jackson for a few minutes of geeking out about monster movies, and he explained how D9 came out of the ashes of the failed Halo movie.) The raves about District 9 were both unanimous and ubiquitous, with everyone either gushing about having seen it or wishing they had.

#2: Zombieland

Another sleeper project, and one that features the overexposed undead, Zombieland crawled out of a buzz grave at Comic Con. This movie was just so gleeful and so outrageously gonzo with its mayhem, and the panel was full of great quotable soundbites. (As opposed to the bland boilerplate we heard on some other panels.) The former TV pilot script does a great job of reinventing the buddy comedy in a fresh way, from the characters named after towns to the pairing of the paranoid Jesse Eisenberg with the gung-ho Woody Harrelson. We were wowed, and so was a capacity crowd in Hall H. The L.A. Times says simply, "Zombieland keeps the movie genre alive."

#3: V

This was a television franchise we weren't sure we wanted to see back again, and yet another remake/reboot that we were leery of. But this show opened our bleary eyes with its moody, weird and scary pilot. The cast, including Firefly's Morena Baccarin and Alan Tudyk and Lost's Elizabeth Mitchell, were snappy and fun to watch. And the old "beware of aliens bearing gifts" trope still turns out to have a decent amount of life left in it. The 4400's Scott Peters brings the right amount of paranoia to a story where the terrorists turn out to be anti-alien freedom fighters, and the media is lying to us all along. We heard several people marveling afterwards that a V remake could be so intriguing. Hollywood Reporter says the screening and panel got a strong Comic Con response."

#4: 9

We've been excited about this film since we first saw Shane Acker's award-winning short film, and every clip has gotten us more thrilled. But the movie's presentation, in the cavernous Hall H, won an uproarious response from people who had never seen anything quite like its style. Rolling Stone's Douglas Wolk (who was on our io9 panel on Thursday) praises its "rich, run-down visual design." The L.A. Times says 9 "snagged" the audience. We felt the excitement in the room, and heard people wondering afterwards about just what kind of movie would get both Tim Burton and Wanted's Timur Bekmambetov on board as producers. (We'll have exclusive interviews with Acker and Bekmambetov, later in the week.)

#5: Felicia Day

Comic Con is pretty much Felicia Day's home town, but this year she ruled more than ever. Her panel for The Guild was one of the big hits of the Con (we heard people talking about it days afterwards) and her booth for the Guild was a major destination. Tubefilter says Day had an "entrance typically reserved for A-list movie stars" at her panel, where she announced Wil Wheaton was joining the cast. And Dark Horse announced a Guild comic. But oh yeah — she also starred in the unaired Dollhouse episode, which completely rocked our world. And Joss announced that her post-apocalyptic survivalist character would be turning up again in Dollhouse season two. All she needed was the announcement of a musical about cyborg Penny, and she'd have ruled the entire con.

#6: Tron 2

Actually, the biggest winner of Comic Con 2008? Was probably Tron Legacy, or Tron 2.0, or Tr2n. Whatever they're calling it this week, the Disney sequel generated as much excitement with one amazing surprise clip of lightcycles as any other property did with a whole panel and banners everywhere. This year, Tron built on that excitement, with a clip that showcased more of its storyline. But honestly, nothing about Tron's Comic Con panel generated a tenth as much chatter as the recreation of Flynn's arcade, complete with video games we'd only played in our dreams. And a real lightcycle. That was all people wanted to talk about for days.

#7: Richard Kadrey

His new novel Sandman Slim comes out in August (we'll be reviewing it soon) and we witnessed several awestruck conversations about the cyberpunk veteran's Comic Con prowess. People talked about his three-book deal with Eos, and Sandman Slim has gotten raves from Cory Doctorow and William Gibson. There were whispers that Hollwood was paying attention, and that's part of what Comic Con is for.

#8: Stargate Universe

The Stargate franchise is rivaling Star Trek for number of consecutive years on the air, and number of shows with things like SG-1 or DS9 after the franchise name. So there's been some doubt as to whether SGU would be true to Stargate and feel fresh and interesting. But the new trailer got people ramped up, and the producers said the right things about keeping this show true to the franchise's traditions. And then Robert Carlyle said the thing about how everybody was going to die. And we were pretty much sold. We also overheard tons of hallway conversations from people surprised they were stoked about Stargate again. The San Diego Union Tribune calls SGU "promising" and says it's one of a few shows that prove "there could be light at the end of our sci-fi TV apocalypse."

#9: Sherlock Holmes

Everybody expected Iron Man 2 to be fun and to feature Samuel L. Jackson swaggering as Nick Fury. And awesome Tony Stark banter and outbursts. We even kinda expected War Machine to turn up. Iron Man 2 lived up to our expectations. But none of us expected Robert Downey Jr.'s other movie to be so much fun, and so full of Victorian verve and rocky bromance between Downey and Jude Law as Watson. We were disappointed when producer Joel Silver told us this film wasn't steampunk, but we certainly heard lots of people suddenly talking about Sherlock. Associated Press quotes Downey as calling Sherlock Holmes an "intellectual superhero." So yeah, Iron Man didn't lose any buzz, that we could see. But Sherlock noticeably gained some.

#10: Avatar

James Cameron's space epic had the biggest hype, and thus the most to lose. So it's not surprising there's a bit of an "Avatar backlash." But like we said yesterday, even most of the detractors were saying things like, "I still think it'll be great, but..." And while the footage we saw wasn't photorealistic, it was an improvement on any CG world-building we'd ever seen before. As long as this movie avoids coming across as too preachy, it stands a great chance of capitalizing on Comic Con excitement. When you have the Kansas City Star reporting that a packed room of screaming fans gave Avatar a "resounding endorsement," that's buzz.

Flynn's Arcade image by JoelTelling on Flickr. Felicia Day image by GeekGirlDiva on Flickr.

We'll go into more detail tomorrow, but for the moment, feast your eyes on the replicated arcade below, as well as some exclusive sketches of the light cycle followed by the two-wheeled wonder itself. For more on the light cycle, head on over to Jalopnik.

Additional reporting and photography by Julia Carusillo.

Note, Bridges is without beard presently.

First take a look at these incredible-looking tokens to Flynn's Arcade. But in the sequel, Flynn has mysteriously vanished. At least that's what has been rumored, and is now being implied on the Flynn Lives site. The followers are dedicated to uncovering the mystery of Flynn's disappearance including a time line and an assortment of clippings about Encom's CEO.

1989 — Kevin Flynn alleged to "disappear." Initial facts raise many questions. Many of us were suspicious.

1990 — Sightings of Kevin Flynn by ordinary citizens, including high-credibility "Level 3" sightings of Flynn in NYC's Central Park during a Shakespeare Festival, on the fringes of a San Francisco street fair, and the notorious "Elvira" sighting of Kevin Flynn at Halloween celebrations in West Hollywood, California. Unfortunately, these initial sightings display certain characteristics true to this day — nothing has been confirmed and photographic evidence has been lacking.

1992 — Sightings continue. Several of us make contact thru Usenet and begin correspondence.

1994 — First Flynn Lives! meet-up in Dayton, Ohio. We resolve to continue our efforts to find out the facts behind the mysterious disappearance.

1998 — Letter from Kevin Flynn to a founding member of the group gains media attention, then debunked. Founding member (now ex-member) checks into a mental hospital for observations.

2001 — A $5,000 award is offered to anybody who can prove Kevin Flynn is alive. By December 31st, alas, nobody had satisfied our jury and the money was spent on a great party for all of the "Troniacs" we know and love!

2002 - 2005 An era of low visibility for our group. Sightings drop off, and interest seems to slacken. Thank heavens that is over!

2007 - Interest picks up as the "Albino Cow" Flynn sighting in southern New Jersey energizes a new generation of activists.

Here are a collection of fake clippings documenting the CEO's mysterious disappearance.

So dust off your unitards, it's Tron time, bitches. BRING ON THE ARG's and day-glow lights, we're ready. Also, we're hoping the countdown hidden beneath the dancing spider is for the Comic Con panel — seems like it.

CC2K previewed the Tron 2 script and praises Steven Lisberger's original work for having innovated new ways of representing the "lives" of computer programs and the ways in which hacking alters the reality of the cyber-world. The review comes down on the new script for not quite following suit. Specifically, the new screenplay doesn't repesent hacking quite the same way, from the Space Paranoids nod to original creator Flynn's video game work, to speedy racing inside the mainframe programs versus Tron. In particular, they have a problem that the fake war scenario of hacking has been turned into a fake race, where in the original it was represented as fighting.

I say the rule of Tron should be: if it looks good, just do it. The race is going to look slick as hell (remember the Comic Con footage). There doesn't have to be much real reasoning as to why the computer would interpret a hack program into a physical race any more than it has to justify digitizing a human being into a computer, and then keeping them there... what do they eat? Where do they go the restroom for that matter?

But if you want to hear more on this fact, check out the article they really go into it. Me, well, I just want to know where Jeff Bridges is and if he'll have that crazy beard (I've heard mixed reviews about the beard's existence). In the new script, the Dude himself is now trapped inside the Encom's main frame, and has been for years, unbeknownst to his son (yes he has a son now in the real world). The real Flynn has been leading a light cycle resistance against evil viral forces from inside the main frame — oh, and he's not crazy or a god...nuts.

So it's into the computer we go with Sean Flynn (Flynn's son), either on purpose to find his dad or by accident (it's not explained). One inside they'll have to prevent the new evil CEO (there's another one) from infecting the world or something.

Here's the stuff that's new that I'm most excited about, these two characters:

D-Rezz and I-Beem. D-Rezz is a, " powerful deletion utility that helps out the heroes. Has the potential to be pretty cute. He growls menacingly at various bad guys while clobbering them and dies in a scene sure to distress the kiddies." I is described as a "A frazzled denizen of the cyber-world. I'm not sure what kind of app he is, but he can teleport from one place to another." Both sound like cute little additions to the sparsely built mainframe of yesteryear.

There is actual data surfing, like surfing. So that's going to be horrendous to watch, I'm sure, but funny for all of us who stopped using "surfing the web" terms years ago. A memory leak is represented as green goo, and in the real world Flynn is a cautionary urban legend, told amongst nerds, about a man who went into the computer.

What did you think of the picture of the new suits that just leaked last week?

If you think about it, that picture tells you a pretty fair amount of what they are doing. They are carrying on the essential items, or ideals, from the original. And that's that the programs, which are the characters you see running around on set in spandex, will have the faces of their programmers, or human counterparts. Also maybe one has somehow escaped the computer and is running loose in the real world. (If that's what they are doing. We don't know that).

What did you think about the Comic Con footage, even thought it was test footage?

If you compare the Comic Con suits to the ones in the original, the Comic Con suits appear to be all computer generated. They're not limited to what we've seen before. There was a texture, and different lighting intensities on the character, so they've got a lot more freedom.

What do you think about the new light cycles?

I think that those are a logical extension of the original. Syd Mead's original light cycle was his impression of what the future would be, and it's really come to pass more than a little bit. Even in todays real world. I drive a Lexus RX 350, if you turn your head and squint a little bit, it's really not all that far from a light cycle, a little bit.

Part of what I loved about the original is that they couldn't get real fancy, with textures and generating things inside the computer world. My greatest fear with a new Tron movie was that they would try and update the look along the lines of something like Doom and make it very first-person shooter. I think that would really destroy the look of the world inside the computer. What we saw in the Comic Con footage made me feel like they are very consciously trying to stay away from that.

Let's talk about Jeff Bridges, old and young, both in the same movie?

I don't know if the footage really showed Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, the presumed CEO of ENCOM inside the computer, you could debate that. That being said I really liked that his character is not the "good guy" that we saw in the original. There's more depth there, there's much more room for him to be a lot of different things. From that clip, we really don't know what's different yet — other than he may not be as much of a good guy anymore. That story can go in many different types of directions, and I think that's fantastic.

What do you think about Flynn being ageless in the computer?

Well you know, everybody thinks of themselves as younger and better looking than they really are. So it's not at all unreasonable for a programmer to have a younger avatar.

Where do you see ENCOM today?

Let's project Encom 25 years in the future? Well Encom, at the time, was showing itself to be a diversified computer manufacturing and research facility. That sounds an awful lot like IBM doesn't it? In 25 years IBM changed from that to a manufacturer or [provider of] services. Encom may or may not have gone that way. It's entirely possible that they stuck to building computers and computer software. Assuming that they survived as a valid corporate entity, which seems to be the case based on what we've seen, they could be making the most powerful computers on the planet. If so that in turn means that the programs running on those computers are a lot more capable, bigger, and a lot more well rounded and fleshed out.

A lot of the actors besides Bridges are coming back, how do you feel about getting the old cast back together?

I think their return is great, I would really like to see Cindy Morgan return as well. To the best of my knowledge, she is not involved. I think that's a shame because [we've become friends over the years]. I can say authoritatively that 25 years after Tron, she is still babealicious in a unitard. I know she would love to be involved.

What do you want to see happen in the new movie?

I don't have a lot of a opinion story-wise, it's not my story to tell. What I loved most [about the original was], it was a way to look inside the computer. Some things were hokey, some things were dead on. Some things that we thought were out of this world turned out to be prophetic. I mean programs fighting each other? Today we have anti-virus programs and spyware killers. That kind of prophecy is something I would like to see in the new movie.

So now that Sark is gone we're going to need a new evil computer voice? Any one you'd like to see?

Really and truly I think David Warner as the bad guy in the original was very good. I would like to see him somehow involved in the new one, although I'm not quite as certain about that. It could be argued with Dilinger gone and Sark destroyed there isn't anything of him left of him in the Encom world. There are a lot of folks who could do a great computer voice form Miley Cyrus to James Earl Jones.

Has anyone reached to you for a cameo?

Not a word, I have not been asked, and I would dearly love to. Everytime that I see a discussion about it on the net, someone will always ask, "Is Tron Guy in it?" I would dearly love to be involved with it in just about any capacity. If they asked me, I'm there.

We think its a travesty that Tron Guy hasn't been asked for a quick walk on cameo on the new Tron film. He can be in the background having coffee or eating a hot dog not even digitized, he needs to be a part of this, it would be wrong to make it without TG. Do the right thing, Tron Guy for Tron 2. That being said, we thank him immensely for taking time away from disc fighting for us.

Slashfilm has a look at the Vancouver set of Tron 2, where one possible extra is resting, before heading off to battle Jeff Bridges' evil beard, or possibly a younger version of Bridges.

Okay, we don't really know if this is an actual suit, for all we know it could be an enthusiastic sound guy, or Tron Guy's son. Click on over to Slashfilm for a better look, along with another set photo of the high tech Encom building where, I'm guessing, the digitizing will take place.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not a Tron hater. For one thing, it has gigantic potential to raise the bar on FX. That said, maybe it's time to dial up the notch on the costumes or release some "leaked" concept art - or at least a concept headband idea, please?

Slashfilm discovered this little gem in the Vancouver Sun:

"Vancouver post-production units are salivating at the prospects presented by the Disney remake of Tron, which carries a whopping $300 million budget and opportunities aplenty for effects and digital polish."

What? Last time we checked James Cameron's Avatar isn't even that high yet. (Though I still think Cameron is low balling exactly how much he spent on his alien space epic - Time estimated in the low to mid 200 million).

If 300 mill is Tron 2's real budget, let's get ready for some ground breaking special FX, because they're certainly paying for it. In a deluge of reincarnated franchises, maybe Tron 2 is trying to stand out by hosing the production with cash. Plus, the work will have to not only surpass the 80s flick but put a futuristic spin on it too. Even though we're excited to see Jeff Bridges again, and to check out the hopefully amazing effects, we have some ideas about better ways to spend that $300 million.

How We Would Spend Tron 2's $300 Million Budget:

1. Build actual light cycles

2. Buy Wolverine nemesis Gambit 1,000 new shirts (but keep the sassy hats)

3. Construct a giant squid and roleplay the correct ending to Watchmen

4. Turn Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell into an HBO miniseries

5. Go on a drug-induced Fear And Loathing-style yacht expedition to Lost's Island and pay Michael Emerson to accompany us on the trip

6. Pay Kirsten Dunst to not sign on for Spider-Man 4 unless they rip the plot from Spider-Man Reign, where Spidey's atomic sperm kills MJ.

7. Direct io9 original movie Finding Glory.

Serinda Swan says that she, Beau Garrett (Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer) and two other actresses play "temptresses from inside the computer world." She explains:

We're sort of the main guy's go-to girls. There are lights actually sewn into our wardrobe, so it's like nothing you've seen before!

By the "main guy," does she mean Kevin Flynn's evil cyber-self, or someone else? And whom exactly are these "temptresses" trying to tempt? Sean Flynn, Kevin's son? This could get ooky pretty quick.

Meanwhile, Swan, who plays Zatanna in tonight's Smallville, says she actually played her spells backwards on her ipod so she could memorize those lines backwards — when you replay her dialogue backwards, it'll sound intelligible, she promises. And Clark's mysterious wish is one that "turns him upside down." Also, she wants to find the spell-book to bring back her father, Zatara, because he died protecting her. The episode leaves the door open for her to return.

[TV Guide]

Ain't It Cool News got the scoop from a source on the movie's Vancouver lot. Apparently it starts out in 1989, where Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) has created a ton of best-selling games based on his Game Grid challenges, from the first film. He's marketed everything he saw in there, as toys and action figures. Then Flynn disappears, leaving behind his seven-year-old son Sean. Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) takes over Flynn's company.

Then we jump forward to the present day, and Sean is now a twentysomething. Bradley gives Sean info that causes him to search for his dad, and the search leads him to Flynn's old arcade, and inside the computer world. Sean meets the CLU character (Flynn's computer avatar in the first movie). Flynn programmed the CLU to make the computer world a better place, but the CLU got corrupted and is creating its own interpretation of "improving the world." CLU is trying to eradicate a type of program called ISOs, and the ISOs believe Sean Flynn will save them from the CLU's attacks.

And somewhere, out there, the real Kevin Flynn is whizzing around on a classic lightcycle. Sean has to find his real dad and enlist his aid against his preternaturally young computer avatar. There's a light cycle versus light jet duel, with both the cycle and the jet creating light walls. And a huge disc battle.

It sounds like fun, and the possibilities of the two generations of Flynns teaming up against the computer image of Flynn, frozen in youth, sound almost endless. Here's hoping! Oh, and supposedly the actual title will be "Tron" plus something after a colon.

While he was designing cars for VW, Simon also designed cars for a fictional company located in another galaxy called Cosmic Motors. In 2007 he published a book of Cosmic Motors designs, and created a website for the company, complete with an elaborate back story about its founding in 8966. Though the founders perished in a tragic space crash, their daredevil, spaceship-loving daughters took over the firm.

If Simon's designs for Tron 2 look anything like the Detonator above, or either of these luscious creations, we're totally sold on the concept design for the movie. These cars are what the cool kids call cherry.See more of Simon's amazing designs on his website. Thanks, J!

At today's Radical Studios panel, publisher Barry Levine talked about Kosinksi's summer plans while discussing Oblivion, the director's "illustrated novel" they plan to publish next year:

Joseph Kosinski is directing Tron 2, and last year he did amazingly well at [San Diego Comic-Con] where he showed that test and had 6000 people show up. This year, he's going to have a trailer, not of the entire film, but just what he's been shooting. He started shooting in April, and given his pedigree and what I know about the film and what I know about Joe—the film will be amazing. So he'll show that trailer there.

Probably not what Tron fans at NYCC would have wanted to hear - but at least we now know when to expect to see some official virtual Jeff Bridges.

NYCC: Radical Announces Project By "Tron 2" Director Joe Kosinski [Comic Book Resources]

After last year's amazing Tron 2.0 test footage premiered at San Diego's Comic Con we were all left stunned. "What, old barefoot Flynn is watching young Flynn destroy some poor blue program? FANTASTIC, and whoa evil beard." While many of you have debated the evilness of Bridges' beard, and the plot summary reveals that there is some rebellion going on against a corrupt cyber-entity which may or may not be Bridges (he could be the rebellion's leader for all we know). But what we've heard a report about how they're going to do it.

A source reveals to io9 that Jeff Bridges has been sent up to Canada to be digitized. A plaster cast has been created of Bridges.

Our tipster tells us that:

They will then take that 3D model and make him younger and then slap it on a body double in post.
As this is only one cog in the machine, I can't give a whole lot of detail. Canada scans actors and props to be used for various projects. These are very high resolution scans that pick up every wrinkle, face lift and scar on the actors body.

If this is true, it totally explains how there can be two Jeff Bridges in the shot together: the real Jeff, and his digitized, younger 3-D clone. Here's hoping it looks as cool as it sounds.

While Wilde's enthusiasm for Tron 2.0 (or Tr2n, or 2ron or whatever the hell it's calling itself today) may be obvious, what struck us about her interview with Sci Fi Wire was just how secretive a movie this seems to be:

Of course, I'm, you know, in a total cone of silence here, so I can't give you anything interesting. But the film will be just as impressive for our time as it was in 1982 for the original. The technological advances have, of course, been enormous, and the effects that we have access to have been so revolutionary. ... We saw an incredible advancement in technology with the use of the face replacement in Benjamin Button, and I think that is marking some of what's to come, and certainly .... in the direction of Tron. Just as far as people being incredibly innovative and taking huge steps forward as far as using technology to create alternative realities. And I think that it's really going to please people that it's going to be just as kind of huge and shocking and just as much of a new movie-watching experience as the first one was.

Part of that pleasure, of course, came from the Light Cycles of the first movie, but ask Wilde whether she gets to ride one in the new movie and you get this response:

[squeals] I can't tell you!!! But I want to! I want to! I'm afraid I'd be murdered before I left the building [laughs].

Okay, someone needs to cut down on Olivia's meds right now. No more squealing or paranoid delusions of people murdering her for today, please.

She did, however, admit that the previously released description of the character she plays in the movie - "someone who works in the virtual world to defeat the Master Control Program" - wasn't exactly correct ("I tell you, it's not a great description. I don't know who made it up. Someone's grasping for straws there.") and confirmed Bruce Boxleitner's involvement in the sequel:

He's so fantastic, Bruce. He's been telling us all about the process of making the first one. And it's just great. Like, they were on an entirely black velvet set, wearing white bodysuits that they weren't allowed to sweat in, even though there was a bank of lights so powerful that they caused a brownout in Burbank. So they weren't allowed to sweat. They're running around in white suits on black velvet with these lights. And they were saying terms that for the time had no meaning for them. They didn't know what a "program" was. Bruce was saying they were ... pulling these things out of, like, sci-fi dictionaries. I mean, they had no idea.

Olivia Wilde Reveals A Few Secrets From Tr2n, With A Blast From The Past [SciFi Wire]

According to Coming Soon, Boxleitner is back and ready for some serious action. We now know that Tron 2.0 is the next chapter after Tron and supposedly takes place after some time (which would explain why everyone is older). Also recently reported to join the cast is Olivia Wilde, who will play a worker who helps fight MCP (Master Control Program) and Beau Garrett is a "siren." I cannot wait, plus I'm over the moon that the cast is returning to make this film, beards and all.

In other good news TR2N is now being titled Tron 2.0 all across imdb, which means the TRZ name scare is probably behind us.

But how do you think the character Tron has aged over the years? And what do you make of this speculation that Bridges will be evil? (Possibly based on the beard alone.)