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 videogame matrix protagonist story actually cost $220 million net, not the reported $170 million to $180 million that was floated out there.
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, Canada 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 concert at the LA premiere which closed down Hollywood Blvd, $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."
Many would like to throw tomatoes at Disney for the casting, that there's zero audience attraction for the likes of Leto, Lee, etc. First, despite tabloid headlines about Leto's alleged behavior, such noise doesn't factor into moviegoers' decisions to buy or not buy a ticket. It could be argued that they're not even in the know of the Air Mail feature. Tron is the star at the end of the day. Had the fan faithful declared it was a better movie than the last, perhaps we'd see an expansion of the audience and some box office momentum, rather than falling short of its $40M domestic opening projection with $33.2M. Moviegoers gave Tron: Ares the same CinemaScore as Tron: Legacy, a B+, which indicates there was no reason to have any FOMO. Definite recommend was an OK 57% on Screen Engine/Comscore's PostTrak; a score in the mid sixty percentile to seventy-plus range indicates a hopeful tentpole has electricity. Tron: Ares was older skewing with 70% over 25 indicating both the Gen-X and Legacy millennial fans showed up, however, as far as making new fans, Tron: Ares had very little appeal from the 13-17 crowd who showed up at 6%. While the Gen X core Tron fans gave Tron:Ares a very high 71%+ definite recommend, the 18-24 set gave it the lowest of any demographic at 44%. Not good.