Why Tron: Ares Bombed At The Box Office

The neon-colored sights of "Tron's" virtual world are awe inspiring to say the least. What was really eye-popping about "Tron: Ares," though, was its dismal $33.5 million domestic opening weekend. Coming in significantly behind "Tron: Legacy's" domestic bow from December 2010, "Ares" only performed marginally better than the North American openings of infamous Disney flops like "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" and "John Carter."  Even in the pantheon of October opening weekends, "Tron: Ares" was a major disappointment, debuting below much cheaper October releases like "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour," "Five Nights at Freddy's," and "Jackass 3D."

Any way you slice it, this $180 million-budgeted blockbuster is a catastrophic flop. With the film likewise bombing in most international territories, there's no hope that overseas grosses can provide financial salvation. The weak performance of "Tron: Ares" comes down to a bevy of problems that plagued this production. Among those fatal issues include the box office track record of "Ares" leading man Jared Leto, its limited audience appeal, and Disney's eternal struggles with selling sci-fi material. In other words, the feature had plenty against it from the get-go.

Grab your Light Cycle helmets and lets fully explore what happened with "Tron: Ares," the movie that proved that not even the Grid's sights can guarantee box office success.

Though he's been showing up in movies since 1995, Jared Leto only has two titles("Suicide Squad" and "Panic Room") that have exceeded $95+ million domestically. Otherwise, Leto's either appeared in arthouse features like "Dallas Buyers Club" or blockbusters that have absolutely flopped like "Morbius," "Haunted Mansion," or "Blade Runner 2049." Putting Leto in your big-budget movie is practically a kiss of death in terms of its box office prospects. It's apparent that the actor isn't a huge selling point for general moviegoers.

Even his single $100+ million domestic performer, "Suicide Squad," scored its immense financial haul thanks to the mid-2010s superhero movie boom and its star-studded ensemble cast (which included Margot Robbie and Will Smith), rather than Leto solely drawing in $325.1 million worth of moviegoers. If Leto, only four years removed from his Oscar-winning "Dallas Buyers Club" turn, couldn't move the needle on "Blade Runner 2049's" box office, then 2025's "Tron: Ares" was never going to get a boost from his name, especially in the aftermath of his much-lambasted movies like "Morbius." 

Even back in the late '90s and early 2000s, Leto wasn't a movie star you could rely on to bring in the big bucks. Disney putting the weight of a $180 million "Tron" movie on his shoulders in the 2020s was an unspeakably baffling move.

"Tron" has always been a favorite among folks on the internet. However, even back in 1982, when sci-fi action tentpoles were scarcer, it didn't bring down the house in its domestic box office run. With a North American gross of $33 million, the film was 1982's 22nd biggest earner of the year, behind "Friday the 13th: Part 3" and "Richard Pryor: Love on the Sunset Strip." 28 years later, "Tron: Legacy" scored $172.06 million domestically, making it the 12th biggest 2010 film in this territory, putting it only slightly ahead the haul of "Clash of the Titans" and "Grown Ups." 

While by no means failures pre-2025, the box office runs of "Tron" movies were more "fine" than staggeringly successful. They also tend to have more long-term cult appeal, rather than becoming beloved masterpieces handed down from one generation to the next. Heck, "Legacy's" greatest long-term impact was Daft Punk's acclaimed score rather than any characters or lines from the film itself. Even at the franchise's peak, there was limited appeal.

The best possible outcome of Disney returning to "Tron" would've seen limited box office returns, demonstrating the saga's definitive ceiling for accessibility. "Tron: Ares" outright flopping only solidified how the franchise isn't beloved by mainstream audiences, despite what some internet dwellers may say.

General audiences needed an urgent reason to see "Tron: Ares" in theaters. Excellent reviews promising more than just Light Cycles and voyages to The Grid could've done the trick. Unfortunately, such glowing reception never came. Instead, the film received mixed marks from critics, with most claiming it lacked an enthralling emotional core or surprising storytelling turns. Jared Leto's central performance also scored widespread derision, as did the decision to remove so much of the action from the Grid backdrop of the prior two "Tron" entries.

Not all blockbusters need glowing marks to reach box office supremacy – just ask the various Michael Bay "Transformers" films or fellow 2025 tentpole "Jurassic World Rebirth." However, those titles belonged to sturdier franchises with greater mainstream appeal. Everyone loves the "Jurassic Park" mythos, but the limited fanbase of "Tron" meant it needed a lot more firepower behind it to entice audiences. Positive reviews may have inspired some skeptical viewers to give it a chance, but it likely wouldn't have propelled "Ares" to a $100+ million domestic debut.

Its B+ CinemaScore grade from moviegoers , on par with past divisive blockbusters like "Suicide Squad," solidified that it wasn't only online film critics who weren't crazy about "Tron: Ares." However you slice it, this blockbuster didn't have either the quality or reception to bolster its box office haul.

In 2010, the year "Tron: Legacy" hit multiplexes, Walt Disney Pictures dropped a slew of big blockbusters aimed at young boys. The result were infamous box office bombs, like "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," that only became go-to examples of studios losing boatloads of money. Subsequent early 2010s Disney tentpoles like "John Carter" and "The Lone Ranger" similarly floundered in their efforts to be "boy" blockbusters. Disney finding immense success in this same time period with "Tangled" and "Frozen" reinforced an inescapable truth: Hollywood ignores women moviegoers at its own peril. This is the demographic that has driven many of the biggest box office hits throughout history, like "Titanic" and "Barbie."

Cut to "Tron: Ares" and once again Disney is staring down the barrel of an imposing money-loser made to appeal to one gender. The film's opening weekend audience was 68% male, a staggeringly worrisome statistic carrying on the tradition of "Tron: Legacy," which also attracted largely male audiences in its opening weekend. Some of 2025's biggest movies, like "Lilo & Stitch" and "The Conjuring: Last Rites," scored over half of their respective opening weekends from female audiences, a sign of how crucial this demographic is to any hit movie.

No wonder "Tron: Ares" flopped. If you're appealing to only one segment of the moviegoing population, how can you be an all-audiences smash hit?

"So much talk of A.I. in big tech today," announces Evan Peters at the start of the "Tron: Ares" trailer. While this line was meant to make the film seem like it had its finger on the pulse of today's biggest headlines, it instead encapsulated why many failed to connect with this feature as a source of escapist entertainment. Open up any news website on a given day in 2025, and countless articles about fresh developments in A.I. tech will fill your eyeballs. Everyone's social media feeds are clogged with A.I. material, while tech companies left and right are now embracing this entity.  

Is that something people want to see as the centerpiece of a massive action blockbuster? After all, why should audiences pay hefty IMAX ticket prices for a movie about A.I. when there are so many news stories or YouTube videos about the technology? "Tron: Ares" just looked like more of what's already clogging the news cycle rather than an effective reflection of real-world technological anxieties. In addition, "Tron's" heightened use of A.I. as a plot device makes it come across as divorced from how the technology is negatively affecting people and the environment in the real world. 

This just made the film seem even more superfluous to folks already over-inundated with A.I. material. A little more escapism and less "timeliness" might've helped "Tron: Ares" appeal more to general audiences.

If there's one part of "Tron: Ares" that everyone agrees rocks, it's the new Nine Inch Nails score. The band, led by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, delivered a collection of lively tracks rife with personality and energy. The advertising for "Tron: Ares" made sure to lean on this band's contributions in an attempt to get Nine Inch Nails devotees into theaters. Unfortunately, there wasn't much novelty in seeing this group doing a film score, considering how many movies their names have been attached to in recent years. Heck, they've worked with Disney prior and even won an Oscar for their score for the 2020 Pixar movie "Soul," which even included an easily-missed Nine Inch Nails easter egg.

Over the last two decades, Reznor and Ross have become some of the most exciting American film score composers thanks to their iconic tracks for features like "The Social Network," "Challengers," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem," and more. While they haven't been credited as Nine Inch Nails for these works, Reznor and Ross film scores still often carry their band's distinct sound. While their contributions have been beneficial for cinema as a whole, that track record deprived "Tron: Ares" of one more idiosyncratic element it could sell to audiences.

Nine Inch Nails made "Tron: Legacy" composers Daft Punk proud with their outstanding "Ares" tracks. However, there wasn't enough specialness in seeing them do a film score to make any difference at the box office.

The original "Tron" debuted as Walt Disney Pictures was diversifying its cinematic output. It was a mission echoed by the 1979 sci-fi blockbuster "The Black Hole," though neither film turned into a massive box office success. Those two efforts epitomize the financial struggles Disney has experienced with homegrown sci-fi movies. Pre-existing sci-fi franchises that Disney bought like "Avatar," "Star Wars," and the Marvel Cinematic Universe have proven successful, but titles in this genre that were developed inside the Mouse House have often been box office disasters.

The examples of this phenomenon are endless, from 2011's "Mars Needs Moms" to the following year's flop "John Carter" to 2015's gigantic dud "Tomorrowland." Then there are the most historic Disney Animation and Pixar flops, such as "Lightyear," "Strange World," and "Treasure Planet." More recently, only a few months before "Tron: Ares" hit theaters, "Elio's" abysmal performance reflected how hard it is to get families and general audiences to turn out for Disney movies featuring aliens and laser guns. Only "WALL-E" and "Big Hero 6" function as lucrative exceptions to the curse that "Tron: Ares" couldn't escape from. 

People have lots of options for sci-fi entertainment out there. Disney's original features in this genre often get lost in the shuffle, a reality that's been obvious since the days of "The Black Hole" and "Tron," and has reared its ugly head once again with "Tron: Ares."

While Jeff Bridges returning as Kevin Flynn was a prominent element of the "Tron: Ares" marketing (he even got his own character poster), the sequel was otherwise divorced from the previous entries in terms of its central cast. Bruce Boxleitner's Alan Bradley, once the centerpiece of the original "Tron: Legacy" teaser trailer, is never referenced in either the "Tron: Ares" marketing or the final film. Meanwhile, "Legacy" protagonists Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) and Quorra (Olivia Wilde) are relegated to appearing in still photographs and news reports. Most amusingly, Cillian Murphy's Edward Dillinger Jr., previously teased as a potential future antagonist in "Legacy," is M.I.A. in "Ares." His heretofore unknown sister, Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson), is instead trotted out.

Given the limited appeal of the "Tron" saga, it's doubtful plastering Sam Flynn on posters would've suddenly turned "Tron: Ares" into a smash hit. However, being so detached from the dangling plot threads and character beats from "Tron: Legacy" surely didn't help "Ares" ingratiate itself to the franchise's die-hard fans. Being so removed from pre-existing "Tron" characters further accentuated confusion over the sequel's existence. 

Rather than seeming like an organic follow-up to "Legacy," "Tron: Ares" just came off as inexplicably disconnected from its predecessors. In this respect, "Ares" struggled as much resonating with "Tron" maniacs as it did with general audiences just looking for big screen razzle dazzle. 

"Tron: Legacy" debuted the same year that the very first iPad hit the market. Its December 17, 2010 premiere meant that "Legacy" preceded the existence of movies ranging from "The Avengers" to "Monster Trucks." Heck, the hit tune "Old Town Road" wouldn't drop on the radio airwaves for nearly a decade. All of this to say, it's been a while since the last "Tron" movie hit the theatrical marketplace. Heck, there was even a shorter gap between "Revenge of the Sith" and "The Force Awakens." Waiting that long between installments meant that any hype intertwined with "Tron: Legacy" had long cooled off.

If it had dropped in 2014 or 2015, "Tron: Ares" may have seemed like a relevant sequel to general audiences. Nearly 15 years and many iPad models later, "Tron" is on nobody's minds. The die-hard "Legacy" fans have moved on to other Disney sci-fi franchises such as the new "Star Wars" films and "Guardians of the Galaxy." Meanwhile, the initial buzz from O.G. "Tron" fans of seeing this world back on the big screen has been exploited so many times now (including in Disney's own "Ralph Breaks the Internet"), that the mere existence of another "Tron" movie isn't special. 

Sometimes, slow and steady wins the race. In this case, though, a lengthy wait had no upsides. It only doomed "Tron: Ares" to further irrelevancy. 

Despite coming adorned with the Walt Disney Pictures logo and a scarcity of major family movie competition across October 2025, only 30% of the opening weekend "Tron: Ares" audience was under the age of 25. "Ares" largely attracted folks between the ages of 25 and 54, so it wasn't like the title only brought in the geriatric crowd. However, it's clear that the film didn't resonate with Gen-Z and Alpha moviegoers. That's a key problem on many fronts, further reflecting that "Ares" had nowhere near widespread enough appeal to justify its $180 million price tag. 

More pressing, though, was that "Ares" didn't register as relevant to a demographic that's proven crucial in 2020s theatrical moviegoing. As early as 2021, it was apparent that teen audiences were some of the most excited about returning to the multiplex. Since then, the biggest 2020s hits, like "Inside Out 2," "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour," and "Barbie," among others, have been driven by moviegoers under 25, while films aimed exclusively at older crowds, like "Horizon: An American Saga," have bombed.

On paper, a PG-13 Disney blockbuster full of IMAX-ready spectacle should've been perfect for younger moviegoers. Instead, they gave "Ares" the cold shoulder. That alone cements why this costly venture had no shot at box office success.

The entire promotional campaign for "Tron: Ares" hammered home one concept above all else: Programs, Light Discs, and other "Tron" iconography were no longer bound to The Grid. This technological domain was now coming to the "real world," specifically, bustling parts of California. Conceptually, "Ares" director Joachim Rønning and screenwriter Jesse Wigutow went this route to give the third installment a distinctive identity compared to its predecessors. In execution, though, "Ares" removed the key visual element people associate with the "Tron" franchise. The neon-soaked digital realm of The Grid is unique to this saga and a critical "Tron: Legacy" element many fans are nostalgic for.

Now, "Ares" was rooted in drab city tableaus seen in countless other blockbusters. Key action beats in the trailers and TV spots showcasing cop cars getting sliced in half in slow-motion or recognizers hovering next to skyscrapers evoked similar "money shots" from promo materials for past Transformers or Marvel movies. It would be one thing if "Ares" promised sumptuous-looking Earthbound locales to compensate for the lack of Grid-centered storytelling. However, centering posters and other materials on nighttime California spaces just made the film look boring, not to mention visually removed from its predecessors in the worst way possible.

"Tron: Ares" was a movie that needed all the help it could get in attracting audiences. Largely removing The Grid gave it one less iconic visual element to lean on in that mission.