As TRON: Legacy comes to Blu-Ray, director Joseph Kosinski has clearly left a part of himself embedded in its lavish digital landscape But if he has his way, as he tells ComingSoon.net, more tales from the world of The Grid told with cutting edge filmmaking technology will materialize on the big screen. At least, if he makes it out of The Black Hole
[This interview contains certain spoilers about the end of TRON: Legacy]
ComingSoon.net: What was your favorite element of the home video release that people are now going to get to see?
Kosinski: There’s a lot of great behind-the-scenes stuff. People, I think, are going to start to appreciate what went into making this movie. The “second screen” stuff is pretty insane. I mean I couldn’t believe how much they put on there. All my storyboards, pre-viz…People who are interested in how movies are made are going to get a peek at just the amount of effort that goes into making, especially a movie like this where everything has to be created first. There are no locations where you can go to shoot a movie like this. Every single thing has to be created starting from a sketch to building it or building a computer, so that’s exciting. Just from the film itself, I was able to go back to Skywalker [Sound] in January and fix about a hundred mix things that I wanted to fix in the movie. I just didn’t have time before it came out. So we were able to remix and re-master all the sound, which I’m really excited about. Because now it’s kind of the fully finished version of the movie.
CS: With the way the time and technology works today, as you were making the film were you thinking ‘In six months I could do this one other thing. I just know the technology will be there but it’s not here right this second?’
Kosinski: Yeah. The cameras are improving all the time. I just shot with the red epic camera last week, which is just stunning, the resolution that thing has and it’s this big. So we were working with a 3D system that was probably half the size that it was 18 months ago. But that’s what’s exciting about it. That’s what I love. We were using the latest technology at that moment. We built that camera two weeks before we started shooting. And on the next one we’ll be able to push it even further.
CS: What was your proudest accomplishment with this film?
Kosinski: Surviving. I’m alive! I don’t know. I think we set out to be ambitious in so many different ways. From the story point of view, from a technology point of view, from a conceptual point of view. And because that first film set the bar so high. And I feel like we followed through on all those promises we made to ourselves. We really pushed ourselves. We never took the easy route.
CS: The ‘TRON’ franchise sort of was dormant but kept building and building this fan base over the years – it’s now got a definitive future. Can you tell me what’s in your head for the future of ‘TRON’? What’s your vision for it?
Kosinski: Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to say too much. I want to save some surprise. But I think at the end of ‘Legacy’ we ended on a very open ended, very interesting note there. Where Quorra, a digital being, now exists in our world. And that crossing over is a very kind of fascinating idea to me. It’s like the world of ‘TRON: Legacy’ is limited to the world and all the stuff that exists in that world stays in that world. But if stuff can cross over, just imagine the possibilities of what that means for the next chapter.
CS: Do you sort of think of it in an epic term as far as your vision? Or are you approaching it case-by-case, story-by-story?
Kosinski: Well, this world’s a massive world. And ‘Legacy’ is one small chapter of it. The animated series is going to explore some chapters before our story. But we laid enough groundwork in ‘Legacy’ that there’s a lot of kind of jumping off points for additional places to go. And that to me is exciting.
CS: What else can you tell me about the television series?
Kosinski: I can’t tell you too much about it because I’m not directly involved with it. It’s being brought in by the producers and writers of ‘TRON: Legacy.’ So I do know that it takes place before the events or between, if you remember in ‘Legacy’ there was that flashback to the moment that Clu took over the grid and the purge and TRON was repurposed by Clu. So the animated series takes place between that event and the opening of our film, in the new between time. So it’s going to fill out some interesting stories about TRON himself, I believe. And some other characters. But I think really what it’s going to do is it’s going to introduce, because it’s on Disney XD, it’s really going to get a younger generation into this world which, interestingly, our movie did not. Our movie did not bring in kids, for instance. Which you would kind of expect almost any Disney movie to do. But we played really well to people in their teens, twenties, thirties, and forties. So it’s going to create that kind of new generation and fans the way, I think, ‘Clone Wars’ has created a new generation of ‘Star Wars’ fans.
CS: Does every ‘TRON’ project have to push the envelope forward as far as what it’s accomplishing with new technology?
Kosinski: I think in terms of the movies, yes. Absolutely. If we do another one we owe it, I think, to the ‘TRON’ legacy to figure out what’s the next frontier. And how are we going to push the story further. How are we going to push the technology? So they’re always going to be hard films to make. But I think we owe it to do it that way.
CS: And you’re working on a reimagining of ‘The Black Hole.’ What can you tell me at this point? What are you ready to put out there?
Kosinski: Well, what I can say is it’s definitely not a sequel. That’s a reimagining of the concept. We know so much more about black holes now and the phenomena that surround them and the incredible effects on time and space that they have. The working, which allows for some really interesting concepts and stories to tell. Travis Beacham is writing the script. We’re working with him right now on it. And it’s just really exciting. It’s a really exciting reimagining of what it’s like to go in a deep interstellar mission to a black hole. And we’re going to preserve some of those iconic elements of the first one that people love. But beyond that, I can’t really say much!
TRON: Legacy is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.
