Did Tron: Ares Just Destroyed Jared Leto’s Career For Good?

Tron: Ares has crashed at the box office, piling onto Jared Leto’s recent flops — but insiders tell The Hollywood Reporter the blame runs deeper, saying Disney’s strategy doomed the film and even Ryan Gosling in the lead wouldn’t have saved it.

Tron: Ares face-planted out of the gate, and Jared Leto is catching most of the shrapnel. But if you ask people close to the movie, swapping him out wouldn’t have saved it. The bigger problem: a pricey reboot almost nobody was asking for.

The numbers are rough

Domestically, Tron: Ares opened to $33 million against a reported $180 million budget. That debut is even lower than Morbius, per Box Office Mojo. It started soft and stayed soft through opening, which is not what you want on a franchise play, especially one this expensive. The movie is in theaters now in the U.S.

The industry read

One insider told The Hollywood Reporter that the problem wasn’t the star so much as the entire proposition:

"You could have had Ryan Gosling, it wasn’t going to work. No one asked for this reboot. If you say, 'Tron: Ares is good, we just needed a different actor,' you’re deluding yourself."

That’s blunt, but not shocking. Legacy IP still needs a compelling reason to exist beyond cool visuals and neon vibes.

How we got here

Leto wasn’t just the lead; he also produced Tron: Ares. According to chatter around the project, Disney previously shelved an earlier draft that would have been a direct sequel to Tron: Legacy. Leto reportedly kept pushing, and the studio eventually moved forward with the version that hit theaters in 2025. It just didn’t connect.

About Leto’s streak

Leto built real cred with films like Requiem for a Dream and Dallas Buyers Club (which won him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor). Since then, the results have been, let’s say, inconsistent. Whether that’s bad luck, shaky choices, or audiences just losing patience with the brand of intensity he brings, the scoreboard isn’t pretty:

• Suicide Squad — IMDb 5.9/10, Rotten Tomatoes 26%
• The Outsider — IMDb 6.3/10, Rotten Tomatoes 53%
• The Little Things — IMDb 6.3/10, Rotten Tomatoes 44%
• House of Gucci — IMDb 6.6/10, Rotten Tomatoes 61%
• Morbius — IMDb 5.1/10, Rotten Tomatoes 15%
• Tron: Ares — IMDb 6.7/10, Rotten Tomatoes 54%

What this means for him

The word going around is that studios are going to think twice before handing Leto another franchise lead until this run of misses turns around. And to be fair, Tron: Ares wasn’t set up for glory even with a different star. Still, this won’t help his case.

Can he bounce back? Sure. It just probably won’t be by fronting a nine-figure IP machine anytime soon.