So despite how much I wish for this franchise to go away and never come back, Tron is here to stay and like a virus in a computer, it is only getting stronger.  According to Ain’t It Cool news, we can expect an announcement from Disney green-lighting Tron 3.

For any who watched the sequel it is obvious that Disney has franchise on the brain concerning Tron.  Disney is planning on a new animated series called Tron: Uprising, which will take place before the events of Tron: Legacy, after the coup by Clu and obviously before the arrival of Sam. Disney has signed Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore and Bruce Boxleitner to lend their voices for their animated avatars.

The cartoon series should give Tron a boost to momentum, one that should carry the franchise on until the next movie.  The rumours say that this movie is to be the first part of a trilogy that will take the franchise to five films.

So what will happen to Tron?  What will come to us?  Writers have claimed that there is a larger plan, and Cillian Murphy—who made a brief cameo as the son of Edward Dillinger, one of the original film’s antagonists—is already signed on to play two roles, obviously one in the grid and one out. It seems possible, maybe even likely that he will be the new villain, although perhaps the filmmakers will play against character and have him be an ally to Sam.

Tron 2 opened with box office numbers lower than expected.  But was Disney hoping for numbers to high?  Disney claimed they were expecting numbers on par of Avatar’s opening weekend.  In preparation, the PR machine went into overdrive and dropped nearly as much on the promotion of the film as it did on the film itself–well over $100 million, and possibly as high as $130 million on marketing alone. The movie itself was budgeted at nearly $170 million, pushing the total budget for Tron: Legacy over $300 million.

But Tron: Legacy has shown that it has legs, and the worldwide gross is likely to surpass $300 million in the next week—it is currently at $292.9 million as of January 11. Not counting the promotion costs, Tron: Legacy stands in 17th place as the highest grossing film of the last 12 months, and the home sales on blu-ray and DVD, as well as any future licensing to television, should net Disney a solid profit. In fact if the advertising hadn’t been so ridiculously costly, the movie would already be far into the black.