If last year's "Avatar" is to have a 2010 analog, it's going to be Disney's highly anticipated December release, "Tron Legacy." The 3-D sequel has been driving fans nuts since it was first announced at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con. Remember when people thought it might be called "Tr2n"?
Since then, reveals have been slow to come and greeted with excitement every time. Other than a brief proof of concept short, they were all stills until last weekend. Following an extensive viral marketing campaign, Disney offered special advance screenings of the debut "Tron Legacy" trailer, which arrives in theaters today in front of "Alice in Wonderland." MTV's Eric Ditzian spoke with "Legacy" director Joseph Kosinski yesterday in advance of the trailer's wide release, and he's got a word of advice for you fans who haven't seen it.
"My suggestion is to see it in 3-D in surround sound this weekend and download it next week and feel free to freeze-frame and analyze," Kosinski said. "It was important to me that when people see it for the first time, they have the opportunity to see it in 3-D on a big screen. The entire second half of the trailer is in 3-D. On your iPhone, it's not quite the same."
Of course, the trailer's already been seen by a select group. A large select group. The viral campaign leading to last weekend's preview screening saw IMAX showings in five major cities around the globe: New York, Los Angeles, London, Toronto and Sydney. Those screenings garnered a lot of attention, more even than Kosinski expected.
"I was surprised at the lengths people went to," he said. "I heard about people getting on planes and flying from Chicago to New York and crazy stuff that I would have never anticipated. We were playing to the 'Tron' base, so if it doesn't play well to those guys and girls, we're in trouble. But it played great."
The most amazing thing for the director is the response he's seeing from longtime fans, people who are still carrying a torch for a franchise that's only seen a single movie, one released almost 30 years ago. "It was fun to hear them cheer for little details that only a die-hard would know, like a glimpse of a laser or a shot of Flynn's Arcade from the outside. That's satisfying, because I've put a lot of those little Easter eggs throughout the film."
One thing in the trailer that fans should look forward to seeing is a brief glimpse of a disc battle. In the original, you got to see denizens of the digital world participate in a sport involving floating platforms and glowing, Frisbee-like throwing discs. Kosinski's memories of prepping that sequence for the coming sequel are vivid.
"It was one of our trickiest shots," he said. "In the trailer, I can only show three seconds of it, but it's a 10-second shot, and it starts with a close-up on Sam's face and ends up 300 feet above you. Whenever you're doing a continuous camera move like that, you've got to replicate it in the real world to create that perspective. You get just a glimpse of it in that shot."
What do you hope to see in the trailer? Are you heading to "Alice" this weekend extra-early, to make sure you don't miss it?
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