Ain’t It Cool founder and father geek Harry Knowles has posted a news story in which he reveals that through his industry contacts, he’s received word that a sequel to Tron Legacy is “incredibly close” to being announced. He’s goes on to state that the film is set to cross the $300 million mark worldwide, which he implies is a significant enough figure to greenlight a follow up.

The international box office is certainly impressive, but as the film is still $40m short of reaching its estimated budget of $170m at the domestic box office, this news does sound a little premature.

You may remember the 2007 fantasy-adventure film The Golden Compass was intended as the first instalment in the trilogy based on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books before modest US box office returns scuppered these plans, despite the film doing $372m worldwide.

Admittedly, that film never managed to cross the $100m mark in the US, but even if Tron Legacy makes it’s budget back in the US, putting money into a second sequel at this stage would require a huge leap of faith by the studio, particularly in the current belt-tightening financial atmosphere.