Tron: Ares - Nine Inch Nails to follow in the footsteps of Wendy Carlos and Daft Punk

Nine Inch Nails are set to create the soundtrack for the upcoming Tron movie, Tron: Ares.

The announcement was made at Disney’s D23 (Official Disney Fan Club) event at Anaheim in California. It’s not the first time that the two core members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have scored a movie – they provided the soundtracks to The Social Network, Bird Box and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, among many others – but it will be the first time that the whole band have worked on a soundtrack that will feature new Nine Inch Nails songs. It will be the first new material from the band since 2020’s fifth and sixth instalments of their Ghost series of albums.

The band chose to announce it with a post on Twitter/X that includes the phrase, ‘You’re going to get what you deserve’, a reference to one of the band’s early hits, Head Like A Hole. This was accompanied by the Tron: Ares and Nine Inch Nails logos.

Tron: Ares will be the third instalment of the Tron series after the original 1982 film, which featured a classic score from synth legend Wendy Carlos, and the 2010 Tron: Legacy reboot, which had an acclaimed soundtrack from Daft Punk. As such, Nine Inch Nails have plenty to live up to.

The D23 event featured many of the new movie’s cast, including Jeff Bridges, one of the original stars of the 1982 movie, who returns for this episode. “Technology and AI is omnipresent in our of our lives,” Bridges said. “What a perfect time to revisit this world. Or, have this world visit us, because that’s what happens in this movie.”

After appearances by other cast members including Jared Leto, Evan Peters, and Greta Lee, a red laser revealed the iconic Nine Inch Nails logo, to much excitement from the crowd. The stage doors then opened to reveal Reznor and Ross. As you can see, it was quite something.

Whilst the original Tron was very much an exercise in fanciful sci-fi, the new Tron: Ares sounds like it’s set, scarily, in the very near future. The plot centres on a highly sophisticated computer program, Ares, which is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first encounter with AI beings.

Fans, though, will have a little while to wait before both movie and soundtrack appear. Tron: Ares has been scheduled for release in October 2025.