How come Star Wars gets a fuck ton of shitty sequels but the first TRON film in 15 years is a flop? I was waiting for this film since I was a child.
I’ll watch it eventually for the soundtrack, but Jared gives me the creeps.
I mean no one likes him but if it was good that wouldn’t be a deal breaker.
It’s not always Jared Leto’s fault when his movies bomb. Easy scapegoat for the everyone else involved, fron the writer to director to producer, to just blame him and pretend no one else fucked it up.
Given some of the bad dialogue (e.g., Ares talking about why he likes Depeche Mode), my impression is that Jared Leto used his role as producer to push the production in certain directions that appealed to his personal preferences. I went in wanting to like the movie (I love Tron: Legacy and NIN so I was definitely excited by certain aspects of the movie), but the movie felt too much like a Leto vanity project. So yeah, I think that, in this case, it’s fair to blame Leto for the movie’s failure, even though, like you say, there were failures across the board, from many people involved.
Seeing how much of an egomaniac the dude is, and straight up like psycho levels of self absorbed, this rings true to me as well. When I saw the poster in theaters I was beside myself as I LOVED Legacy, but the second In started to see the posters with Leto I noped the fuck out. I still had lingering hope, but the lashback from opening week makes it apparent I should wait to stream it.
Creativity at disney is moribund and nothing can fix it without getting rid of the old dead growth. Get rid of iger and similar execs like kennedy. They degrade any project. They dont love the products they produce. I remember one time kennedy commenting on star wars that there wasn’t enough source material. Her problem was she would have to pay for it and thinks the writers are not important. That kind of weak thinking is stagnating disney. It will continue until these fossils are gone.
they also pump out so much low-quality garbage too, rather then focusing on 1-3 IP movies , but streaming cost means it demands more content each year.
I 1000000000% didn’t and won’t go see this movie because of him.
And after cancelling D+ and Hulu last month because they fucked up the Kimmel thing, it may be years before I see it, who knows!
But, initially, when I saw Leto in the trailer that was a quick “nope” from me, dawg.
Disney pulls the plug on Tron after it bombs at the box office.
Disney puts future Tron films on hold after Legacy disappoints.
Disney cancels Tron Uprising after one season due to poor viewership.
Disney cancels Tron 4 after Ares underperforms…
I’m pretty sure the problem is Disney.
Or Tron itself. It’s also named in every sentence of yours…
The original Tron apparently actually made decent money (which is weird because everyone just assumed it bombed?)
Legacy made $410m on a $170m budget.
The problem is legitimately Disney and Leto…
And also Legacy was in 2010 so what exactly is happening here? You can’t turn this into some kind of decades-long franchise with a doofus like Leto as the star, it’s a “well the last one was kind of fun” movie you can’t have a sex pest cultist as your face while trying to rake in casual nostalgia cash.
The original Tron was made on a $17 million budget and made $50 million at the box office in 1982. In 1980, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was made on a budget of $30 million and earned $550 million.
In 2010, Disney wanted their own Star Wars, so they tried making another Tron flick. Maybe they could make it stick. It made $410 million on a $170 million budget. Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith had a $113 million budget and made $903 million.
Disney has since bought and run Star Wars into the ground. Meanwhile Tron: Ares has been in production hell since 2017. And for the first time, a Tron movie is an outright failure.
It’s the same problem that every mid 80’s zeitgeist based resurrected IP faces:
The zeitgeist the movie is based on has been dead for at least 30 years.
For Tron, personal computers aren’t new anymore. The concept of a digital city is so much less exciting once you’ve lived with the internet for 20 years and heard mark Zuckerberg wank endlessly about the “metaverse.”
I think audiences were ready for visiting the virtual world in 2010. Smart phones were new and cool and not sinister yet, it was possible to feel hopeful for the internet…15 years later, not so much.
I liked Tron and Tron Legacy (haven’t watched Ares), but Disney has spent the last decade plus killing good franchises with shitty scripts, so I’m leaning more towards Disney being the problem.
The concept of Tron,is a good one. And the first movie, while not perfect, is pretty good. Theres enough there, that Disney could have created its very own Star Wars franchise. Instead they bought Star Wars, and gave it the Tron treatment to make sure that died as well.
The problem is very much Disney. With Marvel, they got the right creatives together to make mostly solid movies that people liked. Over the past 5 years, they have pissed all that away with being Disney things. And a few months ago, I read that they were looking for another ip to buy so they could bring the gen Z male audience back… Which is telling as fuck, when they have Marvel and Star Wars, but dont know how to make them appeal to the younger male audience so much that they need to buy another IP.
Instead they bought Star Wars, and gave it the Tron treatment to make sure that died as well.
actually, disney’s SW was going to be John Carter and they killed it in favor of SW.
Which is telling as fuck, when they have Marvel and Star Wars, but dont know how to make them appeal to the younger male audience so much that they need to buy another IP.
Well, disney never knew how to handle SW at any point. They had luck with The Mandalorian S01 and with Rogue One, and Rebels, but that’s it… they are a girls/family company and that’s it. Pixar was other thing but now they are Pixaren’t after disney bought them.
actually, disney’s SW was going to be John Carter and they killed it in favor of SW.
They killed it when they took off the FROM MARS part!
John Carter. Who the fuck is John Carter?!
John Carter FROM MARS! Ooohhh, it’s a sci-fi. I’m in!
Good script, good acting, good source material, good director that was really into the source material, shit marketing.
Leto certainly didn’t help, but historically this is how this is supposed to go.
Tron never was a thing and Disney keeps trying to make it a thing. The concept was cool in the 80s but no one has cared since the property.
I’m just glad Hollywood hasn’t made remakes of Flight of the Navigator and Neverending story.
Neverending story
Hate to be that guy but:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NeverEnding_Story_II:_The_Next_Chapter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NeverEnding_Story_III
II is though more of a shitty sequel but III is a shitty original story.
And finally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NeverEnding_Story_(film)#Possible_remake
Ackchtually… :-)
The first movie is the first HALF of the original book, and the second movie is the second half.
They sliced an (awesome) ending into the middle of the book, and the vibes of the second movie were different, but it was authentic to the book.
Now as for the THIRD movie, your point is legit. (Also fun to note, it has Jack Black as a street punk.)
Those are shitty sequels. I saw one of them. I mean full out reboot.
As dar as I could see, III was an original story. But bidding has been won for a remake so we might get one in 3-5 years.
Dear God no.
But neverending story has limitless franchise potential - it’s right there in the title! Lol
And that is specifically what the original novel warned children against.
remakes of Flight of the Navigator
Dude, don’t give them ideas!
I cared.
I think the bigger problem is that it’s just moved away from what Tron is supposed to be about. Like the whole point of Tron is it happens in the computer world what is the point of bringing it into the real world. Then it’s just a weird sci-fi movie with sort of but not really aliens invading, and the market is saturated with sci-fi films with alien invasions.
Having seen the movie, I think it’s actually a decent setup for the plot. The crux of the conflict is that programs can only exist in the real world for 29 minutes before dissolving, and the good mega corporation and bad mega corporation want the “permanence code.”
This time limit adds tension to the real world scenes in a pretty compelling way, because the good guys only need to escape capture for that half hour before gaining some respite. This is reinforced by the moments of viewing the world through the programs’ eyes, which always include the countdown to how much longer they have. There were times I thought “oh they only have a couple minutes” without stretching my suspension of disbelief beyond what’s required to watch a movie where flesh and blood can be digitized by a laser.
It also allows more interplay between the real and digital world that I felt was lacking in the older movies. Those ones call the digitized humans “users,” but it never feels like they are that different when they are in the console rather than at it. This movie has a lot of scenes that cut between the bad guy sitting at his desk typing in commands and the programs in the grid of his computer hearing them as orders and treating him with reverence appropriate to a machine. There’s a hacking scene where you see the programs from one server grid break through the literal firewalls and cut through antivirus programs that does a good job feeling like an abstraction of what is happening in the real world scenes.
All that said, I went to this movie for the soundtrack and pretty visuals, and while the light bikes and such in the real world did look cool, they would have looked a lot cooler in the digital world. There’s one action scene that is, and it is the coolest part of the movie.
That’s just it. The money bros are spineless. Alien invasion movies have a track record of making money. Making Tron true the source material is a gamble insofar as there’s no movie said money bros can point to and use as citation for projected revenue.
This film is a weird mix of pokemon and superman 2.
I’m not a big Leto fan. He’s not the worst actor, but he’s by no means great. But Gary Oldman couldn’t have made this movie work. The problem isn’t the acting, it’s the script. The movie felt like it was designed and written by a marketing committee. Everything about it is formulaic and hollow.
That’s something that Disney regularly has a problem with. They used to find interesting, compelling stories that writers were excited to create.
Now, most of their films are being pushed from the top to expand their known IPs or messaging. The story has become secondary to the product.
Bob Iger said just a couple years back that they had a few flops with new ideas and we’re going to focus on existing IPs and brands. He’s leading Disney into a second direct to home video sequel era. Just like the one that nearly killed the company in the 80s.
Disney is riding high on nostalgia and brand recognition but is quickly burning their capital of good will. The youngest generation isnt getting that same nostalgia that’s going to turn them into Disney fans like the 90s kids had. We’re 30 something’s with a bit of disposable income, and Disney is bleeding us dry after making us their primary demographic. They no longer cater to families, and they no longer are looking to make new, young fans.
It’s honestly depressing to see how much that company has fallen. I got hired to work at Disneyland back in 2008 and spent 8 years of my life trying to bring happiness to the guests that came there. I agreed with and worked hard to bring their message to life. But in my time there, and since, I’ve seen a continual shift from taking care of their employees, making it a great place to work, and to make the best entertainment they can.
Leto was a long term producer of Ares. He had a say in all those things.
I mean, he’s also a sex pest. Maybe that’s why people didn’t want to see it.
That’s certainly never affected box office receipts before now…
True. Alll he can do now is become president
But Gary Oldman couldn’t have made this movie work.
You could think the same about the 5th element.
I blame him not saying “It’s Tronning time” in the movie.
Bust down a door and say, “Heeeere’s Tronnie!”
The name’s TRON. James TRON. And I’m TRONNA make him an offer he can’t refuse.
Then he tronned all over everyone
Its not all letos fault, the movie didn’t even have him tron one time. Missed opportunity fr
I appreciate the Morbius reference ;)
Mostly yes.
I might stream the soundtrack someday, but I’m just not going to pay to see Jared Leto sleepwalk through another performance…
The film was actually pretty good. I get not liking Jared Leto but he isn’t enough to ruin a film for me. Then again, I waited for a franchise revival since I was a kid and now that’s dead and done.
My best friend was looking forward to the movie, until I asked him if Leto being Ares would change his opinion. He was no longer interested from that moment.
Same with me. I somehow didn’t register him in the teaser. As soon as the second trailer came out and I saw him, I concluded I won’t even pirate this one.
By the way, the NIN soundtrack is not good either. Quake’s is much better.
As a NIN fan, it pains me to say you’re right. Having only heard it in the movie and not standalone, I’d say this was basically NIN’s “paint by numbers” soundtrack. Worse, it actually detracted from some scenes (somewhat specifically, the tracks with vocals).
Of the 19 soundtracks I have by Trent Reznor (& Atticus Ross), I’d probably place this somewhere in the vicinity of #15 (I’d need to give them all a proper listen first though; I don’t really have a current ranking for them. Other than Quake probably being #1.)
Jared Leto signed on in 2017. At the time, it made sense. It’s Disney’s fault for letting production stall for so long.
Jared Leto was in active controversy the near entire time. The only reason it made sense to do, is because it was never going to remove him from the role.
I waited for a franchise revival since I was a kid and now that’s dead and done.
I felt the same way after Tron Legacy. Give it like 15 years and we might get a 3rd soft reboot.
Let’s hope they do another one in another 15 years. I think that’s a good cadence for something like Tron (which was in my top 3 favorite movies as a kid). We don’t need to milk the cow dry.
Disney didn’t know wtf to do with Tron. I thought Legacy was a great addition to the universe, but this time around it was nothing more than skipping to the end of the Marvel universe with the Boss Battle bent on world domination with flashy CGI characters. It added nothing. Plus a controversial actor like Leto might be an indication that nobody else wanted the gig for the budget or the poor writing. Couldn’t have possible chose a worse or more boring addition to the franchise. Ruined it, IMO, and I have been a Tron fan since forever.
Legacy was good and a fine launching pad for squeals. They should have used Tron: The Next Day as a starting point for any addition. It’s not as well known, but The Next Day was a bonus added to the physical release of Legacy to pitch the next movie.
As someone who loves sci-fi films and the Tron aesthetic, and who generally enjoyed the two previous films, a sequel should have been an easy sell to me.
Unfortunately, the whole “Tron bikes” and “Tron jets” IRL was - to me - such a huge red flag I skipped opening weekend. It gave the feeling of big action set pieces in the real world where the least amount of creative work would be needed and I had no desire to watch the military or the rag tag group of heroes fight computer programs IRL.
My favorite part of Tron was going into a new world and seeing the digital landscape. I want the lore, I want the “computer program’s are people and mechanics” vibe, I want the fantasy portion of the sci-fi. I do not need another boring ass marvel / Star wars movie with a Tron paint job.
We need an actual trilogy, an actual story with actual arcs, we need actual stakes. This movie convinced me from its trailer alone that it would say nothing, fail to surprise me, and play out in a safe and predictable fashion and do it in such away that it wouldn’t even be fun. I’m all for repetitive dime store movies, but they have to be compelling, well paced, and self-aware. I doubt this movie was any of those.
There are no writers left that can world build. They’re all momentary hype linked by and-then storytelling.
There are plenty of good writers out there working on smaller stuff. The problem has always been they get stifled and overruled in every part of the process in these attempted large blockbusters because the suits ‘know what works’ best apparently.
I think it’s more of a studio/money problem. There are tons of great, well-written movies no one hears about and lots of other creative media. But Americans have low IQs and terrible taste which can only be satisfied by shitty sequels that play on nostalgia and existing IP.
Yes Jared Leto is to blame. BUT not only him. The writing and directing are still going to determine the bulk of how it plays out. A good director will be able to direct Leto into something usable if imperfect.
Leto was a producer. He pulled rank on the director.
Didn’t know that. That definitely makes it fall much more squarely on him. Dude has been such a let down for me after starting off so well, both with the band and with requiem.
Something Tron fans seem to forget, and Disney forgets it every so often, the first Tron was a significant failure as well. Yeah, flashy effects and a cool concept, but it wasn’t as relevant to a wider crowd yet. And Legacy wasn’t exactly a success in the box office either. Many forget that Tron appeals to a smaller crowd and isn’t the blockbuster franchise it should be.
A lot of people think that, but it turns out a lot of people are wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron
$17m budget, $50m box office, and it basically created CGI on the way.
I think people just assume such an acid trip of a movie with such a goofy costume has to have flopped, but nope.
Disney dont know how to market to boys. I was a kid when the OG Tron came out, and I loved it. But the marketing was non existent. There was very little in the way of pushing the movie into the hearts and minds of kids, the same way Star Wars, or heman, or transformers, or even fucking gobots had.
In fact, when I say Tron for the first time it was part of a disney kids double bill. That other movie being Something Wicked This Way comes… Which was, to say they least, creepy as all fuck. These movies went together like peanut butter and a sloppy dogshit.
Tron is a masterclass in how to fuck up a franchise.
