"Tron: Ares" was to introduce a character entirely generated by AI — Disney was afraid of a bad reaction

The science fiction movie Tron: Ares, in addition to Jared Leto as an AI, was supposed to feature a fully generated character.

Disney does not stand aside from modern technologies and actively experiments with the use of artificial intelligence in its projects. According to The Wall Street Journal, at least two films had test versions with fully or partially generated characters — the science fiction film Tron: Ares and the remake of Moana.

In the first case, it was about an AI-generated character named Bit, who appears in the movie alongside AI program Ares, played by Jared Leto, but primarily acts as a “companion” to Jeff Bridges, who has returned to the role of Kevin Flynn. “Tron: Ares” will debut in Ukrainian cinemas on October 9, one day before the world premiere.

“Instead, Moana was to work with Metaphysic to create a facial dipfake of Dwayne Johnson’s face to be transferred to the body of the actor’s stunt double and cousin, Thanoi Reed, and minimize The Rock’s involvement in the filming. Negotiations between Disney and Metaphysic lasted 18 months, as well as some work with AI on the set, but none of the footage will be included in to the final version of the movie, which will debut in July 2026.

In both cases, potential copyright issues, as well as the studio’s concerns about the audience’s negative reaction to AI, prevented the project. Earlier, Disney itself initiated several lawsuits against AI companies, accusing them of illegally using materials to train models. For example, in June, the studio teamed up with Universal to file a lawsuit against Midjourney for “a bottomless pit of plagiarism.”

Earlier, Marvel and Disney were criticized for the use of artificial intelligence in the 2023 series Secret Invasion and the second season of Loki, whose prototype for the poster was found on Shutterstock (in this case, it is not known for certain whether the image was generated or whether the authors simply “borrowed” the idea from a ready-made one).