Tron: Ares

[Thom]

33 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

Does anyone really watch Tron because of the real-world segments? Bringing the programs to the real world just doesn't appeal to me. I want to be on the grid. Then you add in no Bruce Boxleitner (you know, TRON) and a token 5-min appearance by Bridges, and I have to wonder what we're doing here.

Rather than building on Legacy and it's thread and characters, just spin out something new under the Tron name. Boxleitner is still alive, so they could easily de-age him for a significant role in a movie with his character's name on it and bring Wilde and Hedlund, or perhaps their child for another tangle on the Grid. But...

[jenius]

Maybe the true sequel to Tron is wreck it Ralph.

[Dangard Ace]

Just came back from watching it.   Yes sucks that Bruce isn’t in it but I had fun watching it.  Lots of call outs to the previous two movies.  NIN was great.  They had a hard soundtrack to follow but the music fits.    Ending and Post credit scene was definitely a setup for a Tron 4   I didn’t hate Jared in this movie, he was fine.  

[David Hingtgen]

Also just watched---agree with Dangard Ace.  It's fine, and Leto is surprisingly "un-Leto-like".   Unless you truly despise him, he's "acceptable" as the lead.

Plus, half the movie is just dialogueless face-less programs doing cool trippy stuff to a synth* track for minutes on end---and that's really the main draw, isn't it?   

*please forgive my lack of sub-genre knowledge.  I have no idea what to call it, past "it's not rock, it's not country, it's not classical jazz".   

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, David Hingtgen said:

Plus, half the movie is just dialogueless face-less programs doing cool trippy stuff to a synth* track for minutes on end---and that's really the main draw, isn't it?

That's all I needed. Going to see it in XD 3D on Tuesday night.

[Big s]

6 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

Also just watched---agree with Dangard Ace.  It's fine, and Leto is surprisingly "un-Leto-like".   Unless you truly despise him, he's "acceptable" as the lead.

Plus, half the movie is just dialogueless face-less programs doing cool trippy stuff to a synth* track for minutes on end---and that's really the main draw, isn't it?   

*please forgive my lack of sub-genre knowledge.  I have no idea what to call it, past "it's not rock, it's not country, it's not classical jazz".   

Industrial, basically. Definitely not classical jazz or country. It pretty much covers bands like Nine inch Nails, Ministry and KMFDM as a few of the bigger examples. Some bands are more rock and metal sounding and others are more dance pop or in the case of Ministry, starting out as dance pop then moving to a more metal side of the spectrum. NIN is kinda the mid range of dancy and rocky

[Old_Nash_II]

https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/tron-ares-box-office-opening-weekend-roofman-kiss-of-the-spider-woman-1236544376/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNZzhRleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFOSjg2aGRUT3F1N0NuNTRqAR4EtzY0s8D0Fmr-tMSsxGiNd3fgu5O6nJEjWnyRiEFzg_OkR3M2npZEM-4Vxw_aem_tcV0x2-lUihbaLpD6H2ugg

According to Variety, the film didn't do well upon its release. I think it was kind of expected; neither of the previous two did, but this one was even worse than the first (by a few fractions). But what can you expect from it, and its plot? Besides, this kind of makes a sequel impossible in the short term, as they wanted.

I think if they're going to do something like that, I hope it's a TV series with at least 8 episodes, to close Leto's arc (who is as dull as the Joker).
In fact, Leto was charging a pie and sugarcane juice to be able to make this movie, because it's really bad.

Edited October 13 by Old_Nash_II

[TangledThorns]

On 10/12/2025 at 9:09 PM, mikeszekely said:

That's all I needed. Going to see it in XD 3D on Tuesday night.

Yeah, I plan on seeing ARES this week too. Probably will be the last TRON movie ever. 

[mikeszekely]

Just got back from seeing it. I liked it. The plot, while not amazing, was better than expected, the visuals were cool (see it in 3D if you can), and the soundtrack was cool. 

[Old_Nash_II]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/baylorlariat.com/2025/10/14/review-end-of-line-tron-ares-may-be-last-in-franchise/%3famp=1

 

I don't know this source well, but it's known that the film underperformed, and whenever that happens, its future projects are put on hold, or even canceled, like The Quest for Camelot (yes, I'm still sad about its closure). But if that's true, I hope Disney sells the production rights to a company that can treat it better.

[Big s]

I guess they’re saying it’s the worst performing Leto project. Another Leto letdown at the box office 

[mikeszekely]

I really don't know why people are so down on it. I liked it better than Fantastic Four or Superman when it comes to movies I've seen this year.

[TangledThorns]

Just got back from seeing ARES, it was well made and the NIN soundtrack was so good you could have just closed your eyes and listened to it through the whole film. Jared Leto's performance was fine too but his films seem to be cursed.  

HOWEVER!! Not having Sam Flynn and/or Quorra return was a yuge f'ing mistake and there was plenty of room to include their characters in ARES. I'm sure making a sequel so late (15 years!!) after LEGACY didn't help either. Plus there was an over abundance of nostalgia that can't be expected to carry a movie either, that GenX money can only get you so far. 

Sadly, since ARES wasn't a block buster hit I think this will be the last TRON movie ever and doubt we'll see a new streaming series too.  

 

Edited Thursday at 08:36 PM by TangledThorns

[Rhubarbarian]

On 10/9/2025 at 9:29 AM, Thom said:

Rather than building on Legacy and it's thread and characters, just spin out something new under the Tron name. Boxleitner is still alive, so they could easily de-age him for a significant role in a movie with his character's name on it and bring Wilde and Hedlund, or perhaps their child for another tangle on the Grid. But...

Apparently, a sequel to Legacy was the original plan, and Leto's character was a much smaller part of that movie. When that movie fell through, Jared pushed to make a new movie centering around his character happen.

Real monkey paw situation that we get an actor that has the pull and the drive to get a Tron movie greenlit, but the actor is Jared Leto. Personally, I find him repellant enough that I'm going to wait for streaming for this one.

[Hikuro]

I'm sort of thinking I wanna go see it, But the earliest show time is gonna be 1PM and man when I went to pick a seat, all were wide open......so I guess that tells you something. Should probably be a hint to studios, Leto is not someone to use. 

[mikeszekely]

I saw it with some friends, but I'm thinking about taking my wife and kid to see it (though they're not super enthusiastic about it).  But the only XD 3D showtime is during my daughter's piano class...

[Big s]

7 hours ago, Hikuro said:

Should probably be a hint to studios, Leto is not someone to use. 

I really doubt he’s necessarily the problem. From everything I’ve been hearing, it’s an overall problem with everything not including special effects and soundtrack. And when I kinda think about it, Leto mostly just ends up in terrible movies that are bad and would’ve been bad even if someone else was in it. The first suicide squad movie sucked and Leto was barely in it, Morbius sucked, but it was gonna be a turd no matter who was in it. Look at all the other Sony flops like Kraven or Madam Web. Nobody could’ve saved morbius. 
His problem is that he keeps saying yes to garbage and I think that’s really what’s killing his acting career.

[TangledThorns]

Yeah, Jared Leto isn't the problem. You could have cast any actor as ARES and the result would have been the same. 

In hindsight a complete TRON reboot would probably have been a better idea. Oh well. 

7 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I saw it with some friends, but I'm thinking about taking my wife and kid to see it (though they're not super enthusiastic about it).  But the only XD 3D showtime is during my daughter's piano class...

 

Yeah, my wife and kids had no interest so it was just me. lol 

 

 

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Yeah, my wife and kids had no interest so it was just me. lol 

My wife's the kind of person who sees that it got bad reviews so assumes it must be bad but also unironically likes the live action Dragonball and Avatar (The Last Airbender one). If it's colorful and has a few action scenes she'll be fine. 

As for my daughter, she's always been kind of indifferent to movies until she actually watches them. Even when she was little she never really wanted to go see like the new Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks/etc movies. Pretty sure the only reason she watched K-pop Demon Hunters (which she’s obsessed with now) was because my wife saw it in her Netflix queue and asked her to watch it together. But usually after watching the movie she'll say she liked it and talk about scenes from it days later.

[Old_Nash_II]

https://deadline.com/2025/10/tron-ares-bombs-box-office-1236591880/

It's safe to say that none of the films did well at the box office, but this one had better merchandising than the previous ones.
I don't know if it was because of the theme, or if Leto's charisma didn't help, but we can say that with these numbers, it will be a while before we see another film in the franchise, or even a streaming series.
Sometimes, releasing this type of production directly to streaming services would be a very good idea, as was the case with Prey.

[Hikuro]

It's like anything TRON really doesn't do well in the main stream and tends to have a cult following. Afterall we did get a cartoon series over a decade ago with a solid voice cast though the story was a little messy with Tron in hiding and suffering from data corruption and had not become Rinzler yet, going old bruce wayne mentorship with Beck, a program with the potential to becoming the next Tron. it was an interesting series that only got 1 season. 
 

[mikeszekely]

All I know is I did my part... I dragged two friends to see it one night, and yesterday I took my family.

Tron: Uprising was awesome.  I should re-watch it next.

[TangledThorns]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

 

Tron: Uprising was awesome.  I should re-watch it next.

 

Uprising was best TRON imho. 

 

3 hours ago, Old_Nash_II said:

https://deadline.com/2025/10/tron-ares-bombs-box-office-1236591880/

It's safe to say that none of the films did well at the box office, but this one had better merchandising than the previous ones.
I don't know if it was because of the theme, or if Leto's charisma didn't help, but we can say that with these numbers, it will be a while before we see another film in the franchise, or even a streaming series.
Sometimes, releasing this type of production directly to streaming services would be a very good idea, as was the case with Prey.

 

Pretty sure TRON is toast at this point. Ugh. 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by TangledThorns

[Dynaman]

Not completely done, Disney has a couple of Tron coasters to promote...

 

[David Hingtgen]

Ironically, the Tron coaster at Disney World is my all-time fave.  Not that I go on very many coasters to compare, but I love it 10x more than any other I think.  It's so SMOOOOOOTH.