Last year at Comic-Con, Megan Fox willingly gave Olivia Wilde the title of hottest woman on the planet, and this year Olivia continued the tradition of beautiful humbleness by passing that title on to Katy Perry, who Maxim put number one on their list of 2010′s Hot 100.

While giving MTV News’ Josh Horowitz a tour of Flynn’s Arcade from “Tron” at last week’s convention, Josh jokingly brought up the passing of the title from Olivia to Katy. “What? What? What!” Olivia replied in mock outrage, before saying seriously. “It’s great. She is hot. It’s fantastic.”

We’re sure there’s actually no such thing, but Olivia continued the joke by saying that — similar to the Miss America pageants — Maxim will take Olivia’s top hottie crown and have a celebration where they place it on Katy’s head as their own sort of baton passing ceremony.

There seemed to be no hard feelings coming from Olivia though as she told Josh in all seriousness, “It’s funny. I think everyone is similarly amused by the whole thing, and it’s great.” Does Olivia really have anything to worry about? We all know she will always be one of the hottest ladies on the planet.

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At a press conference last week at Comic-Con in San Diego, the cast and crew of “Tron: Legacy” gathered to discuss the heavily anticipated 3-D sequel to the 1982 Disney film. Oscar winner Jeff Bridges (“Crazy Heart”), who originated the role of Kevin Flynn in the first film, had all but given up on a sequel until a script showed up two years ago.

“Disney had kind of had it on their back burner,” Bridges explained. “They were not satisfied with the script. So they waited, and I’m so happy they did, because we got a good script, and also they held out to find the right guy to be at the helm.” Referring to director Joseph Kosinski, who has a background in architecture, Bridges said, “I think they really found a terrific leader…. It’s always interesting where a director comes from, whether he’s a writer or an actor. To have an architect being at the helm of this one was terrific. He was really up to date with all of the modern techniques that they have in special effects and everything, so he was a great leader. He’s terrific with actors, so we got that entire package together and they presented it to me, and I said, ‘I would love to do it.’ ”

Bridges continued, “Also, just like the first one, it tickled the kid in me to be sucked inside a computer, and you can play with all the new toys that we had available to us, and to be involved with something so cutting-edge was very exciting.” Joining Bridges on the sequel are Bruce Boxleitner, who reprises the roles of Alan Bradley and Tron, and producer Steve Lisberger, who wrote and directed the original. Lisberger calls that film, which was made before the Internet existed in its present form, a modern myth for an entire generation.

“It’s almost like it’s been held back. Now you can feel all the energy you missed over the last 27 years,” said Lisberger. “Technology is all about bringing people together, supposedly, and now there’s a sense that technology may have a dark side where it keeps us from connecting with each other, and I think this film examines that problem.”

21st-Century Advances

Back in 1982, all the live action that took place inside the computer was filmed in black and white and colorized later using photographic and rotoscopic techniques. The crew draped the set with black velvet and fastened it with duct tape, and artists would manually draw light beams on every frame of the film.

“Even though the computer graphics are simple compared to what we’re able to do now, the design work is so strong and the imagination is so vivid and vibrant, it just transcends time,” said Kosinski, a first-time feature director. “I had a great time assembling people from the automotive industry, the world of architecture—people outside the film world—to all come in and collaborate on this project. There was such a great foundation in there for us to build on. It was a lot of fun evolving those designs, making it feel more real and visceral. I wanted the film to look like you had been pulled into a computer and we shot it with cameras on the inside. As far as 3-D goes, we used the Fusion camera system developed by James Cameron. We actually used a newer-generation camera than the camera used on ‘Avatar.’ It was a lot more work. It’s a really tedious process, but it pays off in the end. Ultimately, our story is a father-son story. It’s a story about Sam in search of his father, who disappeared in the Encom mainframe 20 years before.”

“Isn’t 3-D without glasses coming next?” Bridges interjected. “Holograms can be next, or maybe you’ll just take a pill. Tron: The Pill.” Actor Michael Sheen (“Twilight”), who plays Castor in the new film, joked, “I believe ‘Tron: The Musical’ is coming up before that.”

“Tron: Legacy” is the first 3-D movie to integrate a fully digital head and body based upon an existing actor, creating the younger version of Jeff Bridges’ character, who serves as his avatar, Clue. It was a very different acting challenge for Bridges, and he marveled at how with technology an actor can now play a character at any age from infant to elderly.

Revolutionary Outerwear

Another first for “Tron: Legacy” is that it’s the first movie to make extensive use of self-illuminated costumes molded to the actors’ bodies, using digital sculpture from computer files with CNC (computer numerical cutting) technology. In other words, the wardrobe budget was $13 million. By itself, one custom suit for the racers cost $60,000.

“It was totally revolutionary,” said Olivia Wilde (“Year One”), who plays Quorra, a mysterious warrior and companion to Kevin Flynn. “We were wearing electroluminescent lamps woven through layers of neoprene and all these other amazing materials. It was an honor to be able to wear something like that, which was changing the way that every other department was working on the film. It would change the way the scene was lit and opened us up to all these kind of interesting possibilities. And it was really beautiful. We would get really excited every time the suits would turn on, because you’d look around and just be like, ‘Gosh, this is really amazing.’ And then they made this little sound, ‘neeeee,’ which the sound department loved.”

Sheen joked that the costumes were so cool, the actors would forget to act. “There’s a great moment before every take, where just before they say action they go, ‘And light ‘em up, and action!’ Suddenly the whole room would go ‘Bing’ and you’d forget to act. ‘That’s so cool…oh shit!’ ” The actors went through rigorous martial-arts training and motorcycle training and performed as many stunts as they could for the fight scenes. Actor Garrett Hedlund (“Four Brothers”), who plays Flynn’s 27-year-old son Sam, remarked that the key was to stand as straight as possible so as not to bend and damage the expensive suits, which would only slow down production.

Kosinski selected Grammy Award-winning French techno duo Daft Punk to compose the score. Wilde found listening to their music on set really helpful and inspiring. “They were integral in the process of shooting,” she said. “When you need to find tone in the scene, you listen to a Daft track and you really understand where you are in the movie.”

This was not the film’s first Comic-Con visit. In fact, as Bridges recalled, the effects tests that were unveiled at the convention two years ago were absolutely integral to getting the whole movie rolling. To repay the fans, Kosinski showed the latest trailer, eight minutes of footage, and even had the roaring Comic-Con crowd record lines of background dialogue, which will be included in the final cut.

“Tron: Legacy” opens Dec. 17.

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Cowboys & Aliens’ Olivia Wilde reveals how Tron got her hooked on action movies, plus more from the cast and crew!

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There’s no denying it, Disney’s “Tron: Legacy” looks awesome. I try to remain objective about teaser-type advertising of an upcoming film, but I have to say that Disney has done a marvelous job of peaking my interest. From the flawless special effects, to the illuminated suits and stylized visuals, it all looks gravy to me.

However, although “Tron: Legacy” may turn out to be visually flawless, the acting and execution has me a little worried. The sample scene previewed at comic con seemed to fall a tiny bit flat on the acting side. This may be attributed to the fact that I hadn’t eaten breakfast that day, but overall it felt like it was lacking something. It came across as being littered with spoon fed lines and rookie expressions. Not only that, but we’ve all heard that the creators had to do some reshoots in June, upon the recommendation of Pixar professionals after an initial screening. That alone is a sign that they must have initially done something wrong. Hopefully, all this reworking will only make for an even more perfect end product before the film’s debut on December 17th of this year.

Despite all my “worries”, I’m seeing it. I don’t care if it gets rotten reviews, or if my own mother tells me I wont like it – this film will be seen by me in IMAX 3D, as soon as it hits theaters. With all the hard work that has gone into it, I refuse to miss experiencing it in person on the big screen.

According to the film’s actors, getting all of these alluring high-action scenes right was a daunting process. “My character had to go through hardcore training,” says actor Garrett Hedlund, who plays Sam Flynn. “It was a tedious process, but you have to have the strength in order to defy the restrictions. I think we did a pretty good job.”

Lucky for Garrett, his character wasn’t required to wear heels. Olivia Wilde, who plays Quorra, says that she had a different experience. According to her, she did all the training in tennis shoes, but her wardrobe consisted of a surprising set of 4-inch heels. She claims it was a bit of a struggle to re-learn all the kicks and stunts in her challenging footwear, “It was a whole different thing, but I’m glad we did it.”

Despite her hard work, Olivia humbly gave credit to the stunt professionals on set, “We did a lot of martial arts training, and we tried to do as many of the stunts as we could, but we also had a really amazing stunt crew… and they made us look pretty bad ass.”

Aside from the crazy stunts, the stellar wardrobes also offered challenges to the crew. With the rubbery material and tight fitting tailoring, they were set up for a struggle. Hedlund admits, “The more you bend, the more you rip, and more repairs have to be done.” Fortunately, thanks to the hard work and dedication of the full cast and crew, they overcame the challenges at hand. Of course it’s our duty as audience members to see if we notice any issues now that we are aware of the fashion back-story.

Audiences can also look forward to a double dose of Jeff Bridges, who plays two characters in this film; one of which is 35-year-old version of himself. Bridges commented, “I haven’t seen the final effect yet, but I’m really excited to see it.” Along with high action, the creators say that they “focused on a father son story – a very emotional story – in addition to all the stunning visuals.” From what they have all been saying, if they get this right Tron has the potential to blow audiences out of the water. It has it all: stunts in heels, wardrobe issues, high action, amazing visuals, and even an emotional storyline. What more could we ask for?

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The highly anticipated sci-fi film Tron: Legacy is finally opening in theaters on December 17th, much to the delight of fans of the 1982 original. After nearly three decades of updated technology, the story is now a high-tech, 3-D adventure set in a digital world that’s unlike anything ever captured on the big screen.

While at Comic-Con, Jeff Bridges & Bruce Boxleitner, co-stars from the original film, were joined by Tron newcomers Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde and Michael Sheen, to talk about the excitement for the film, revisiting the world and putting on those electronic suits.

Question: For the actors new to the Tron franchise, what was your first exposure to the original?

Michael: I remember when I first saw Tron back in 1943.

Olivia: It came out two years before I was born, but it’s always part of the culture. I was aware of it because of video games. It was this cool retro thing that I was aware of. It was just part of the zeitgeist. I just always knew it was cool, and now we’ve made it cooler.

Michael: I was 11 when it first came out. I went to a cinema. My uncle Russell was there with me and, apart from the phenomenal acting, I forget who the actors were. It was just that look. It was both a futuristic and historical cyber-movie with this weird thing called CG.

Garrett: I never saw the original until about 2003. I saw it on my laptop oversees somewhere. A pal had shown it to me. He said, “You’ve never seen the original Tron? You have to see Tron.” So, I sat back and watched, and I just thought it was a trip. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. At that point, it being 20 years old, it still played so well.

Jeff, what was your reaction when this first came across your path?

Jeff: Well, I had heard rumors that there was going to be a sequel, for many years, but I gave up on it. And then, all of a sudden, this script showed up and Disney had it on the back burners because they were not satisfied with the script, so they waited. And, I’m so happy they did because we got a good script. They also held out and found the right guy to be at the helm. With Joe Kosinski, I really think they found a terrific leader because he came from architecture. It’s always interesting where a director comes from, whether he’s a writer or an actor. To have an architect at the helm of this one was terrific. He was really up-to-date with all of the modern techniques we had in special effects, so he was a great leader and he was terrific with actors. When we got that whole package together and then presented it, I said, “This sounds like something I’d love to do.” Just like the first one, it tickled the kid in me to be sucked inside a computer and play with all of the new toys that we had available to us. To be involved with the cutting edge was very exciting.

How does it feel to see people so excited about Tron again?

Jeff: Oh, it’s great. It’s so exciting. Comic-Con wasn’t around back when the first one came out. To feel the energy of the people, we really sensed it when we came here last year and showed the trailer. It was the year before that when we showed the first test, and that was very responsible for getting the whole movie rolling and getting it financed. The fans have been very integral to this whole thing.

Did you do any photography on the set of this film?

Jeff: No, I didn’t take too many pictures on this film, mainly because the cameras that I use are wide lens. They require quite a bit of light and our movie required very little light. Because of the suits, it was quite dim, so I didn’t take too many pictures. I have a few and they may pop up on the web site again.

What’s it like to have Daft Punk involved with the film’s score?

Olivia: It was amazing because they would come to where we were shooting. Sometimes, if we really needed to find the tone of a scene, we would listen to a Daft track and then you’d really understand where you were with the scene. I thought that was really helpful and really inspiring, so we were lucky with that.

Jeff, do you think 3-D is here to stay?

Jeff: As far as 3-D goes, I don’t know if that will stay very long because things are moving so rapidly. As filmmakers, we’re constantly always looking for something to bring the audience deeper into the reality of the story we’re telling. There’s a film process called Show Scan that Douglas Trumbull developed that didn’t take off. That was running the film at 60 frames, instead of 24 frames, and it was projected that way. It made everything look sharp and with almost a 3-D effect. 3-D without glasses should be coming out in the next 10 years. That would be a hologram. Or, maybe you’ll just take a pill. It will be Tron: The Pill.

Bruce, how did it feel to work on this?

Bruce: Well, the idea of working with Jeff again, and finding out where these characters went after all these years, and seeing what happened to them, was what intrigued me. When I first read the script, I was just thrilled about it because I had no idea that Alan Bradley had become such a lost soul. It was such a great take on these characters that was so absolutely real. I was just thrilled by it.

What was it like to wear the electronic suits?

Olivia: It was amazing.

Michael: It was amazing to watch Olivia in the suit.

Olivia: It was totally revolutionary. This had never been done before. We were wearing electro-luminescent lamps woven through layers of neoprene and all these other amazing materials. It was an honor to be able to wear something like that, that was changing the way that every other department was working on the film. It would change the way the scene was lit, and it would open up all of these possibilities. It was really beautiful. We would get really excited every time the suits would turn on because you’d look around and go, “Gosh, this is really amazing.” Then, it made this sound, which the sound department loved.

Garrett: We had to train immensely for the suit and they do this thing called cyber-scan, where they created this suit out of every curve and definition of your body, so it was completely exact and fit like a glove. Then, you would go into a dark room and light it up. That was the most satisfying.

Michael: There was a great moment before every take where, just before they’d say, “Action!,” they’d say, “Light them up!” In the scenes that I was in, there were a lot of people in them, so the whole room would suddenly light up and you’d forget to act for a little bit because it was so cool.

Bruce: In the original film, all we had was spandex tights with magic marker. It was the first male thong. We didn’t plug them in.

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Being trapped in the “Tron Legacy” universe wasn’t exactly the most natural experience for Olivia Wilde. But, as the actress told MTV News at San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend, once she got used to being in a life-size video game, she fell in love with its artificial landscape and adrenaline-infused sequences.

“People always say, ‘Oh, it’s all CGI. Were you just acting on green screen all the time?’ ” Wilde said as she showed off a re-creation of part of the movie’s set. “Our director [Joseph Kosinski] is an architect, so we had sets that were so beautiful that there would be an audible gasp when people walked on the set.”

As breathtaking as the set was, filming the movie doesn’t exactly sound healthy for the actors. “You know everything about this world was unfamiliar to us,” Wilde explained. “It was totally non-organic and so you had to kind of get used to what these surfaces would be like, and never seeing the sun. And we actually got to experience that, because I don’t think any of us saw the sun for five months.”

Wilde said she got really into the action sequences of the movie, which comes out in December, as she played the “enigmatic” — but not overly sexy — Quorra.

“She’s a warrior princess kind of thing. She is a companion and confidant of Jeff Bridges’ character, Flynn, and she’s been with him for a very, very long time,” she explained. “And when Sam, his son, [played by Garrett Hedlund] finds himself within the world of Tron she becomes his guide and when things become messier, she becomes a protector. She’s certainly not the vixen. I wasn’t interested in making her that.”

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