Tron 4 Just Hit a Setback — Disney Fans Won’t Like This

Well, that was fast. Tron: Ares stumbled out of the gate, and if you believe the chatter around town, Disney might be powering down this franchise for a long while. The irony? The movie itself isn't even a disaster critically — it just didn't get people to show up.

What Tron: Ares actually is

Ares plays like a mostly standalone follow-up to 2010's Tron: Legacy. Jared Leto stars as Ares, a highly advanced Program who gets sent out of the digital world and into ours on a risky mission — basically humanity's first face-to-face with AI beings. It's a big swing conceptually, and reviews were a touch warmer than Legacy's. The problem is the box office.

The numbers (and why they hurt)

• Opening weekend domestic: $33 million — around $10 million less than Legacy made 15 years ago.
• Critics were slightly kinder to Ares than they were to Legacy, but that didn't translate into ticket sales.
• Timeline check: the original Tron hit in 1982, Legacy arrived 28 years later in 2010, and Ares showed up 15 years after that. This series loves long naps.

Disney's next move: probably no Tron 4 (for a while)

Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Disney is likely retiring Tron from the big screen after Ares underperformed. Translation: that post-credits tease director Joachim Ronning set up for a Tron 4? Don't expect it to happen anytime soon — likely not this decade.

So... is this on Jared Leto?

Social media seems to think so, with plenty of people pointing to Morbius as Exhibit A. One veteran talent manager, speaking to THR, did not mince words:

"In a world where Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor and Benedict Cumberbatch are having a hard time getting lead roles, why would you even go to a person who can't open a movie and who has question marks around him as a person."

But another insider pushed back and said the bigger issue is the brand itself. In their view, you could swap in a marquee name like Ryan Gosling and it still wouldn't move the needle. The take was blunt: audiences weren't asking for a Tron reboot, and blaming it on the lead is wishful thinking.

Is Tron truly done?

Never say never with this series. It keeps vanishing for decades and then rebooting itself. That said, based on the current read, if Tron does return, it's not marching back onto the big screen anytime soon.

If you want to revisit the grid: Tron and Tron: Legacy are streaming on Disney+. Tron: Ares is still in theaters right now.