Inside Jared Leto’s Mars Island: What Really Happens at the Exclusive Retreat

Jared Leto has had his share of headlines, but few things he does spark debate like his band’s pricey fan getaway, Mars Island. It’s part music retreat, part wellness weekend, and part… well, you’ve seen the photos.

What Mars Island actually is

Thirty Seconds to Mars launched Mars Island back in 2019 with a three-day retreat on Obonjan, a private island off the coast of Croatia. Fans paid thousands to hang with the band and soak up a schedule that mixed concerts with yoga sessions and movie screenings.

• Location: Obonjan, Croatia (private island)
• Length: Three days
• Activities: Live sets, yoga, film screenings, meet-and-greet moments
• Dress code, unofficially: Lots of white (including Leto in flowing robes)
• Price: Packages advertised around $1,500 to $6,500, with one account touting a $6,499 VIP tier that included alone time with Leto and priority entry into something called the Church of Mars
• The band’s own wink: They posted photos on X on August 15, 2019 with the caption 'Yes, this is a cult #MarsIsland' — a phrase they’ve also splashed on merch and in videos

Why it set people off

Those staged images — Leto in white, fans in white, sun-drenched crowds listening to him perched on a rock — gave people flashbacks to documentary footage of, you know, actual cults. The optics were not subtle. Critics argued it felt like devotees paying to be isolated on an island with their leader, and the band leaning into the 'cult' gag didn’t help.

One Instagram commentator, @thecinemavigilante, went in on the whole vibe, describing a $6,499 package that promised alone time with Leto and access to the Church of Mars, and snarking about the crowd (even taking shots at the women in attendance). The account mocked those rock-top sermon moments too, which, fair, looked extremely choreographed.

'I think Jared Leto wants to be Jesus Christ and wants you and everyone else on earth to believe that he is a Messiah of some sort... This is cult level shit.'

That wasn’t an isolated take. Plenty of fans and onlookers chimed in on social platforms (yes, Reddit included) to call the whole thing pompous at best and straight-up cultish at worst. At the same time, the turnout in those photos suggests a lot of people were thrilled to be there. Two realities can be true at once.

Where Leto is now

Controversies aside, Leto is back on screens with Tron: Ares, which opened earlier this month. He stars as Ares, with Joachim Ronning directing.

The reception is mixed: audiences are warmer than critics. Rotten Tomatoes shows an 86% audience score versus a 53% Tomatometer, and IMDb sits at 6.7/10. Financially, it’s rough so far — roughly a $180 million budget against about $103 million worldwide to date, per The Numbers. It’s in theaters now, with Disney+ listed as the streaming home once it lands online.

On the music side, Thirty Seconds to Mars is still active, and Leto has more film work lined up: he’s attached to play Skeletor in 2026’s Masters of the Universe, and he’s producing Lunik Heist, which is in pre-production.

Bottom line: Mars Island is one of the stranger celebrity-fan experiments out there — part festival, part spa weekend, part performance art — and the band seems perfectly happy to stoke the 'cult' conversation while cashing in on it. Whether you see that as clever branding or something more uncomfortable probably depends on how those white robes make you feel.