Tron: Legacy Made $400 Million At The Box Office, But Paved The Way For A Movie That Grossed $1.5 Billion

It is rare for action movie sequels to be better than the original film, but Top Gun: Maverick proved skeptics wrong by shockingly far exceeding all expectations for the action movie and reviving the business of movie theaters at a time when the lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic were threatening to push most theaters to the point of declaring bankruptcy.

The box office success of the movie demonstrates Tom Cruise’s star power and the difference that creativity can make, even when directing sequels. Top Gun: Maverick, which has some of the best action sequences in recent years, is a fantastic legacy sequel that has even better writing and acting than the previous movie, which is a traditionally cheesy ’80s flick.

For director Joseph Kosinski, who’s been on the scene as a high-octane sci-fi action filmmaker since making Tron: Legacy, Top Gun: Maverick proved to be the vehicle that would make him a household name. Joseph Kosinski’s latest movie has surpᴀssed Tron: Legacy‘s box office, but the director’s debut film is secretly a predecessor to both Top Gun: Maverick and F1.

Joseph Kosinski Is A Household Name After Top Gun: Maverick and F1

Reviews of F1: The Movie alongside Sinners, prove 2025 is a year for original cinema as much as it’s the year of sequels, with many iconic franchises returning after years. Following up Top Gun: Maverick with such a successful and thrilling original movie as F1 has catapulted Kosinski to further fame as a promising Hollywood director to watch out for.

Tron: Legacy’s Action Scenes Are Among The Director’s Best

Garrett Hedlund as Sam riding a lightcycle in Tron Legacy

Irrespective of how you feel about Tron: Legacy, one has to admit that it features some of the best action scenes in sci-fi movie history, making it feel like we already have a live-action Akira adaptation. The light cycles in Tron: Legacy look stunning, and the visuals of the races with light streaks behind them set the standard in 2010.

The hand-to-hand combat scenes are choreographed just as well, but the highlight in the fighting remains the disk battles, which use a sH๏τ-countersH๏τ pattern to raise the stakes and increase the thrill for the audience. The way the disks cut through the air before bouncing off shiny surfaces, spinning at dizzying speeds, and derezzing characters looks great even today.

A lot of TRON: Legacy was sH๏τ in Vancouver, using 3D cameras, whose footage was then combined with new-age CGI techniques to create the Grid.

The wingchute chase sequence in the climax is just as thrilling, and filmed with a similar energy to make the bright orange suits across the dark sky look like ʙuттerflies in a dance routine. The emotional stakes raise the pace of the chase, and the cinematography, using wide-angle sH๏τs, ensures the thrill of the chase gives viewers an adrenaline rush.

Tron: Legacy Also Features The Perfect Soundtrack

A trademark of a Joseph Kosinski film, as we know it today, is a soundtrack that complements the action’s tone and energy. While Harold Faltermeyer’s classic Top Gun Anthem plays in the legacy sequel, Hans Zimmer was the principal composer for Top Gun: Maverick, and he ensured audiences feel every step of the aircraft maneuvers with his bᴀss-heavy background score.

Hans Zimmer is also the primary composer for F1: The Movie, where the composition is a little more electronic but with orchestral music combined, so that the rush of the racing is palpable, but in the context of the advanced design of the racecars. F1: The Movie also features some moody and appropriate needle drops that improve the viewing experience.

2025’s Tron: Ares will feature Nine-Inch Nails instead of Daft Punk, since the music duo split in 2021, and haven’t made a comeback since.

This trend can be traced back to Kosinski’s directorial debut, where Daft Punk, who make one of the best surprise cameos in sci-fi movie history, created a purely electronic background score to reflect the futuristic design of Tron: Legacy‘s Grid. Derezzed, which plays during the bar fight, embodies the energy of a Tron battle, be it with vehicles or disks.

Rewatching Tron: Legacy Shows Where Kosinski Has Improved

Tron: Legacy demonstrates Kosinski’s grasp of the visual grammar of high-octane action, which he’s further improved with time. The flying scenes in Tron: Legacy are cool and thrilling, but Top Gun: Maverick is a case study in how to film flight. Similarly, the racing scenes in F1 combine the thrill of Tron: Legacy and the flair of an expert storyteller.

One of Tron: Legacy‘s weaknesses is the poor quality of acting, as everyone looks bored except Michael Sheen. Kosinski’s later direction has brought out the best performances from stars like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Javier Bardem. He’s also found the perfect balance between visual and literal storytelling, and F1 and Top Gun: Maverick jump right into action without exposition.

TRON: Legacy Is Still Joseph Kosinski’s Most Underrated Movie

Quorra and Sam huddled together in Tron: Legacy

While his later films demonstrate the polish of an improved filmmaker, Kosinski had a tough job of continuing the canon and telling an original sci-fi story in Tron: Legacy, while showcasing the stunning visual design of the Grid and the thrilling action sequences. It still holds up as his most underrated movie and proves Kosinski had a strong directorial start.