Shocker to absolutely nobody, but Tron: Ares (review here)bombed hard at the box office over the weekend. The film opened to just $33M domestic and $60M globally, despite Disney injecting around $200M into it. And now, it seems somebody has finally gotten the message that nobody wants more of these movies.
According to THR‘s sources, Disney is set to “retire” the Tron franchise once and for all. It’s a long time coming, really. The first movie in 1982 made $50M which wasn’t bad, but still underwhelming when you consider the video game craze going on at the time. Tron: Legacy in 2010 scraped together $399M, an underwhelming number that scared Disney away from continuing on…at least for a while.
So how did Tron: Ares happen when there was NEVER any uproar for it? Jared Leto, that’s how. The polarizing actor, who has never been a box office draw, especially when it comes to studio tentpoles, convinced Disney to let him lead the latest Tron flick and relaunch the franchise. Well, we see how that worked out. Tron has only ever been a niche property, and let’s be honest, Leto is more of a punchline than a serious actor.
I bet Amazon MGM are regretting the casting of Leto as Skeletor in their forever-developing Masters of the Universe movie. Can they get a mulligan on that?
Looks like it’s finally game over for Tron.
