Tron: Ares Is A Giant Box Office Gamble For Disney - Will It Pay Off?

Disney has had a bit of an up-and-down year at the box office. They've had incredibly high highs with "Lilo & Stitch" making $1 billion earlier this summer. They've also had incredibly low lows, with "Snow White" serving as one of the biggest bombs of 2025. The studio's next big movie, the long-awaited "Tron: Ares," truly feels like it could go either way. The question is, will this gamble pay off? Or will this franchise expansion prove to be a grave miscalculation?

Directed by Joachim Rønning ("Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales"), "Tron: Ares" is currently expected to pull in between $42 and $55 million when it opens next weekend domestically, per Box Office Theory. Those estimates are right in line with earlier tracking, which had Disney's latest entry in the "Tron" series pulling in around $44 million, per Deadline. Those numbers suggest that this might turn into a "time is a flat circle" moment for the Mouse House.

2010's "Tron: Legacy" opened to $44 million in the U.S. before going on to make just over $400 million worldwide against a reported $170 million budget. While the budget for "Ares" has yet to be revealed, it's tough to make a movie on this scale with a big cast for less these days. And, even though "Tron: Legacy" was widely viewed as a disappointment at the time of its release, Disney is now looking at an almost identical opening weekend for this new sequel.

The film centers on a highly sophisticated program, Ares (Jared Leto), who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind's first encounter with A.I. beings. The cast also includes Greta Lee ("Past Lives"), Evan Peters ("American Horror Story"), Hasan Minhaj ("It Ends With Us"), Jodie Turner-Smith ("After Yang"), Arturo Castro ("The Menu"), Cameron Monaghan ("Gotham"), Gillian Anderson ("Sex Education"), and Jeff Bridges, reprising his role as Flynn from the original "Tron."

The financial realities for blockbuster movies are radically different now than they were 15 years ago. The bar has been lowered for everyone in Hollywood. Some studios might be pretty happy with $400 million against a $170 million budget. Maybe not thrilled, but happy. Disney has long seen "Tron" as a possible major franchise, dating back to the original in 1982. It made $50 million against a $17 million budget, but the studio had bigger ambitions.

In the here and now, Disney has Tron Lightcycle rides in its theme parks. They talked about making a sequel to "Legacy" for years before "Ares" got made. They want "Tron" to be a thing. But "Ares" is tracking for an identical debut in the U.S. Beyond that, the international box office is more volatile than it used to be, and "Legacy" made 57% of its money overseas. Granted, this is the kind of American movie that can still perform overseas, but depending on that money is a fool's errand.

Then there's the Jared Leto of it all. Leto has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, which he's denied. Even so, that casts a shadow over the production and the press tour. Even if we just look at the financials, Leto hasn't had an outright hit since "Suicide Squad" ($749 million worldwide) in 2016. "Blade Runner 2049" was a cautionary tale of a disaster, taking in just $259 million worldwide. "The Little Things" ($31 million), "House of Gucci" ($153 million), "Morbius" ($167 million), and "Haunted Mansion" ($118 million) have all been disappointments, if not outright flops.

The good news is that the competition in the realm of PG-13, live-action blockbusters isn't steep for the rest of the year. But with audience-friendly movies like "Black Phone 2," "Shelby Oaks," "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere," "Predator: Badlands," and "The Running Man" arriving in the ensuing weeks, there will still be competition nonetheless. Between the high cost, Leto's track record, and this franchise's track record, the risk is high. If critics and audiences are underwhelmed, this one could face a steep uphill battle.

"Tron: Ares" hits theaters on October 10, 2025.