Update: October 12, 2025
TRON: ARES Hits the Skids with $33.5 Million Opening Weekend, Likely Ending Hopes of Ever Rebooting the Franchise
Disney’s reboot
Tron: Ares malfunctioned badly in its box office debut, coming in well behind expectations with a domestic opening of $33.5 million from 4,000 theaters. Unless it can solve its problem quickly, it will once and for all end hopes of rebooting a storied, yet troubled, sci-fi franchise that began more than four decades ago when the first film became a cult classic.
Overseas — where the sci-fi genre is an ever harder sell —
Ares also disappointed with a debut of $27 million for a global start of $60.5 million. It unfurled everywhere save for China, where it opens next weekend.
Heading into the weekend, the big-budget event pic had been tracking to open to $40 million to $45 million domestically (at one point, $50 million was even a possibility) against a hefty net production budget of $180 million after tens of millions in tax breaks and production incentives.
The
Tron film franchise has always been challenged, resulting in terms of long gaps between installments. It took 33 years for the sequel,
Tron: Legacy, to make its way to the big screen. Debuting in 2015,
Legacy opened to $44 million domestically on its way to earning $409.9 million globally, not adjusted for inflation.
Ares was in development for a decade, but former Disney exec Sean Bailey refused to give up and shepherded the project when serving as head of Disney’s live-action studio.
Disney insiders were well aware that
Tron: Ares might encounter trouble in its box office debut. The hope now is that solid audience scores can make up for decidedly mixed reviews. Its current critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes is 57 percent, while the audience ranking is much better at 87 percent. And it got four out of five stars on PostTrak. Also, it has little competition coming up and will retain Imax, Dolby Cinema and other premium large-format screens, which combined accounted for an unheard of 67 percent of opening weekend earnings.
Norwegian Disney vet Joachim Rønning directs the third film, which stars Jared Leto as the eponymous program, Ares, Greta Lee as Eve Kim, CEO of ENCOM, the tech corporation at the center of the series since the start, and Evan Peters as baddie Julian Dillinger.
The big-budget 'Tron: Ares' came in $10 million or so behind expectations domestically and likely ends hopes of ever rebooting the sci-fi franchise.
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