Tonight the great Jeff Bridges showed up in Dallas, to attend the local opening of his new film The Amateurs, and treat everyone who was there to a post-film Q&A with he and the film’s writer/director Michael Traeger. I’m not the sort who goes in for celebrities. Maybe something’s miswired inside my brain, but if you told me Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie were standing on my doorstep signing autographs, I probably wouldn’t even bother to get up and look out the peephole. There are exceptions to that for me though, and one of them is Jeff Bridges. I love Jeff Bridges, he’s the first guy I ever remember watching on a movie screen, and I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to bask in his Dude-like words of wisdom.

So I dragged my sorry, winter-flu ridden ass to the Angelika in Dallas, and wasn’t disappointed. The Dude doesn’t just abide, he delivers. The movie was alright, but the post-film Q&A was what made the night, with Bridges talking endlessly on just about any proposed topic. Oh, here’s where I get the point of this story.

There have been rumors for awhile now that a sequel to Tron might be in the works. So of course one of the first questions posed to him was whether or not it’s actually happening. He confirmed all the speculation, and said that’s a big yep. But will he be involved? In the past he’s hinted that they might pitch him something, however tonight he all but confirmed there really is a part for him in it. When asked about his involvement in the sequel he gave us a maybe and said, “I’m taking a look at some stuff next month.”

Alright, that’s not much. But to me it at least confirms that there’s definitely a part for him in whatever this movie is, and he’s open to the idea of being a part of it, if whatever they’re going to show him delivers. Otherwise why bother looking?

My Tron love is no secret. I’ve pontificated endlessly on this site about the way it changed and shaped my life, as the first movie I remember seeing, watching it at a drive in movie theater looking over my father’s shoulder across the parking lot while everyone else faced the other way and watched Snow White. I love Tron. It’s a classic, it’s untouchable, and the idea of an inferior Hollywood sequel makes me goddamn nervous… but not if Bridges is in it. When the rest of the original Tron cast has absolutely no freakin idea what the movie was about, Bridges got it. Bridges knew what kind of ground they were breaking, what kind of movie they were making. If he does it, then Tron will be good and I’ll breath a sigh of a relief. Show him something good folks, you need Jeff’s seal of approval.