Disney Takes Tron Franchise Offline After ‘Ares’ With Jared Leto Flops
The failure of Tron: Ares is having the predictable effect that Bruce Boxleitner, Tron himself, was afraid of. An insider reports that the franchise is being unplugged, and is going back on the shelf, “for the foreseeable future.”
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However, the insider, The DisInsider, leaves a microchip of hope that the program will be dusted off one day. “The franchise will return at some point but is being put to rest for the foreseeable future,” they said.
Fans were skeptical that a Tron movie without the actual character or the actor who played him, and that shifted the focus to a new character from the grid played by Jared Leto, would be any good, let alone perform well. Lo and behold, they were right.
The numbers, as crunched by Cosmic Book News, speak for themselves. Ares cost a reported $220 million to make (which could be higher, let’s face it; we know the studios, especially Marvel/Disney and DC/Warner, haven’t been transparent about their budgets).
It only grossed $73.16M domestically upon its debut, complemented by a flaccid international haul of around $142.2M. In all, the sequel could lose The Mouse another cold $300M it doesn’t necessarily have on hand.
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Reviews were mixed with critics, who altogether leave Ares with an aggregate Rotten Tomatoes score of 54 percent. However, average moviegoers warmed to it at a higher rate with an 84 percent score.
The brunt of the blame is going to Jared Leto and his fading box office power, which wasn’t much to begin with. This issue is likely to carry over into the new Masters of the Universe movie, where he plays Skeletor.
That’s another troubled production, as is its larger franchise, which has a very divisive recent incarnation on Netflix written by Kevin Smith. Until now, He-Man and MOTU have been dormant cinematically as they’ve encountered trouble over and over again for decades.
It goes without saying that this is largely due to the debacle of the 1987 Cannon effort with Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella. However, it’s also been pointed out that toy sales were already on the downswing by that point.
If his pattern holds, Leto fatigue might also sink MOTU, and another franchise would be put on ice a second time before it could rise from the ashes.
