$795 sandals lure women to 'Tron'

By MICHAEL WHITE, Bloomberg News Service

December 13, 2010 at 10:40PM
A Quorra Couture platform sandal designed by Jerome C. Rousseau and selling for $795 is part of Walt Disney's marketing campaign for "Tron: Legacy."
A Quorra Couture platform sandal designed by Jerome C. Rousseau and selling for $795 is part of Walt Disney's marketing campaign for "Tron: Legacy." (Bloomberg News/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Three decades after "Tron" turned cyberspace into a fantasy world, Walt Disney is pitching the 3-D sequel to grownups with high-end merchandise such as a $2,600 Rotenier necklace and $795 spiked sandals from Rousseau.

Disney has rewritten its marketing playbook for "Tron: Legacy," which opens Friday, to reach fans old enough to remember the 1982 original. Jewelry and shoes, the priciest items, reflect an effort to attract women.

"The demographic we got to speak to for this film was a young adult and the adult consumer who happened to be around" for the original, said Pamela Lifford, a Disney executive who oversaw development of the "Tron" fashion goods. "We knew we had to be creative."

With the haute-couture flourish, Disney's marketing machine is reaching beyond the core science-fiction and fantasy fans who form the movie's natural base. More than 6,000 people, mostly younger men, crowded into the Comic-Con trade show at the San Diego Convention Center in July for footage and talks by actor Jeff Bridges and "Tron: Legacy" producer Sean Bailey.

"Our thinking is to play a lot broader," said Bailey, Disney's president of production. "We have the digital whiz-bang wizardry that gets the men in. The No. 1 job was to put a priority on story and emotion, boy meets girl."

"Tron: Legacy" picks up where the original left off, with entrepreneur Kevin Flynn, again played by Bridges, trapped in a virtual world. Flynn's son, Sam, is pulled into cyberspace to join his father's battle against a ruthless villain.

The movie, which co-stars Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund, reportedly was produced for about $170 million.

The company spent $20 million to $25 million on a video game, "Tron: Evolution," released Dec. 7, estimates Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles. A "Tron" animated TV series and a graphic novel are also in the works.

"Tron: Legacy" is expected to generate as much as $66 million in its opening weekend and $255 million during its run in theaters in the United States and Canada, according to Jeff Hartke, an independent box-office analyst.

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MICHAEL WHITE, Bloomberg News Service