Tron: Ares Set to Lose $132M+

Summary

EXCLUSIVE: There’s more bleeding red neon than imagined coming out of Disney‘s Tron: Ares. Deadline has learned from sources that the third chapter in the 43-year-old video game matrix protagonist story actually cost $220 million net, not the reported $170 million-$180 million that was floated out there. This means that the Jared Leto-Greta Lee-Jeff Bridges light cycle movie is headed for a $132.7 million loss after all ancillaries, that is if its final global gross smacks dead into a wall at $160 million. The Joachim Rønning-directed movie counted through its second weekend as of Sunday a running worldwide cume of $103 million, with a 67% second-weekend domestic plummet of $11.1M. At a $160 million box office threshold, Tron: Ares triggers $72.2 million in worldwide theatrical rentals, $37.6M in global home entertainment, close to a $100M in global home television, with an extra $5 million from airlines for a total of $214.8M in revenues. Put this up against the $220 million net production cost shot with Vancouver, BC tax credits, a $102.5M global P&A spend with stunts at San Diego Comic-Con, touring light cycles, a laser light Nine Inch Nails laser-light concert at the Los Angeles premiere that closed down Hollywood Boulevard, $10.8M in others costs and $14.2M in residuals, which gets you to total costs of $347.5M. That gets us to a $132.7 million loss. Exclaimed one astute talent rep on why it was game over for Tron: Ares at this October’s box office: “There was no specific vision, to be honest. The idea that Disney would spend a quarter of a billion dollars on a Jared Leto film that is a franchise that hasn’t worked in four decades is insane.” While we’ve told you the shortcomings with this Disney reboot swing and miss — i.e., the finite appeal of the Tron franchise (it bombed when it first came out in the 1980s, gained cult status on home video, and had an OK revival in 2010 a year after the first Avatar making $400M) and the limited draw of non-Star Wars and s...