Tron: Ares' box office flop stuns Hollywood. Learn why Jared Leto's passion project failed, its $33 million debut, and how it changed his career forever.
The November 2025 release of Disney’s long-awaited sequel, Tron: Ares, fizzled at the box office after a gross that trade observers called a disaster and an “IP-killing event”. The Joachim Rønning directed film made a lackluster domestic debut of $33.2 million to $33.5 million, well below its estimated opening gross by $10 million or more. The opening fell just shy of $60 million worldwide, ranging from $60.2 million to $60.5 million.
Ares not hitting the $100m mark in its opening weekend against its sizable budget made for an early and likely impossible-to-recover-from financial loss for Disney. With the failure, Report said that it is very likely that Disney will “retire the franchise from the big screen” for the foreseeable future, signaling to investors a continued reluctance to finance risky.
The box office doom of Tron: Ares, according to MovieWeb, once again raised and intensified doubts about Jared Leto’s bankability as a star who could anchor a major studio tentpole. The seeds for this industry skepticism were planted three years earlier with the collapse of Sony’s Morbius (2022).
This recurring pattern of financial failure has consolidated a trade consensus that sees Leto as an actor who can’t reliably bring in box office for similar big Intellectual Property (IP) tentpole projects. Industry reports have indicated that “the big paydays Leto received for Ares might well be over,” as studios are increasingly shying away from the actor as a dependable male star draw.
In today’s Hollywood, star viability is inexorably linked to public perception and promotability, more so for those who headline massive franchises for corporations like Disney. Leto also has considerable baggage, including several sexual misconduct allegations (which his representatives deny) that surfaced just prior to the Tron: Ares press cycle.
The allegations posed significant challenges for Disney’s marketing team, with industry executives wondering how the actor could “shoulder the pressure of selling two theatrical movies while dancing around the damning claims”. The controversies had an immediate effect on possible promotional opportunities, creating uncertainty as to whether prominent media outlets would allow him to participate in the usual press routines to help market a blockbuster, making him a major-risk.
Industry peers is also pointed out his self-serving spectacle and unprofessional distraction after his extreme behavior on set including mailing eccentric gifts to Suicide Squad co-stars or walking around on crutches for Morbius. The perceived expense of working with the actor’s process wasn’t anymore worth the result. This professional reputation of being a “pain in the ass” who wastes time, combined with his inability to open wide films makes him a uniquely risky bet for studios that want to run-efficient production and clean PR.
According to People, The flop of Tron: Ares is far more than a box office number, it’s the shattering of an actor’s sincere passion against the cold, hard financial calculations of contemporary Hollywood. For years, Jared Leto was spearheading the movie, leveraging his celebrity and producer credit, dating back to 2017, to bring Disney’s long-dormant sci-fi franchise out of development purgatory. His commitment was authentic; he was a fan of the original film and its tech, and playing the digital warrior Ares was a very personal goal for him.
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The broad consensus in the business is that Leto’s way out is would be to turn on a dime and not be the lead vehicle for a big-budget franchise movie. The most obvious sign of that strategic recalibration: his next role is as Skeletor in Amazon MGM’s Masters of the Universe.
Reports say, This casting is generally regarded as a potential career booster for the actor. Adopting the role of the main villain, Leto once again places the financial weight solely on the IP and the hero, enabling him to focus on crafting a memorable performance. The campy villainous role of Skeletor is a dream role for Leto, and one that lends itself perfectly to his style of transformative acting where he utilises heavy makeup and theatricality (see House of Gucci). How well this transition works will depend on his ability to strike the right balance of “menace and camp,” and keep critics away from dismissing the performance as too silly, a perception that has dogged both his Paolo Gucci and Joker performances.
Leto and his team’s main professional challenge is to manage the promotional risk. Any future promotions around the film will have to strategically separate the actor from the success of the project, downplaying those risky stunts or conversations about method acting that come from set, and instead just talk about the character and the spectacle of the film. The twin flop of Morbius and Tron: Ares have cemented that Jared Leto is simply no longer considered bankable enough to weather the scrutiny and controversy that comes with carrying a mega-budget franchise.
Caught Stealing is emerging as Darren Aronofsky's most exciting and underrated film, with Austin Butler giving a career-best performance in the 1998 NYC thriller.
If you checked the box office rankings in August 2025, you might have thought Caught Stealing was a bomb. It came, it saw, it didn’t come close to recouping even a quarter of its budget. That’s a flop in the cold calculations of Hollywood. But if you dig movies that actually mean something, you already know that box office numbers are never an indicator of quality.
Caught Stealing is a terrific film that was just released at the wrong time. It is a gritty, sweaty, adrenaline-charged tour of 1998 New York City, and it may be the most fun film Aronofsky has ever made. So as it finally comes to streaming, here’s hoping this misunderstood classic can find a wider audience.
Darren Aronofsky is generally known for his brutal misery. From the drug-fueled nightmares of Requiem for a Dream to the pornographic claustrophobia of The Whale, his movies are usually predicated on a formula of obsession triggering madness. You respect his films, but you don’t always “enjoy” them.
Stealing Caught steals the script and flips the script sideways. It’s Aronofsky loosening his tie. He brings his trademark intensity to a crime thriller that seems like a mash-up of Coen Brothers capers and a 90’s action flick. He’s no longer “wallowing” in his character’s pain; he’s feeling the chaos, literally. The upshot is a movie whose balance of excruciating suspense and farcical comedy achieves a tone that’s idiosyncratically, strangely electric.
Forget the hip-swivel of Elvis and the bald menace of Dune. According to Screenrant, In Caught Stealing, Austin Butler completely reinvents his physical presence. He plays Hank Thompson, a washed-up baseball prodigy turned alcoholic bartender.
To promote the part, Butler had to abandon the dehydrated “superhero abs” look for what the production termed the “Baseball Body.” He bulked up with 35 pounds to resemble a ‘90s power hitter — big, heavy and utilitarian. When Hank fights, he does not do karate but he draws on centrifugal force, wielding mundane objects like a bat, looking like a dashing person with the body mass of a football player. It’s a grounded, sweaty turn that brings gravity to the movie. You buy that he’s a guy who’s given up on life, which is what makes it so interesting when he has to fight for it.
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One of the film’s smartest moves is its setting. By placing the action in 1998, Aronofsky removes the safety net of modern technology. There are no smartphones to GPS a getaway route. There is no cloud to upload evidence to. Hank is alone in the Lower East Side with nothing but payphones, paper maps, and his wits.
This “analog anxiety” imparts a breathless, hands-on energy to the film that so many modern thrillers are missing. It’s a “run and gun” movie powered by a pounding post-punk score that will make your heart race. The camerawork captures the filth of a non-gentrified New York, a city of dilapidated infrastructure and menacing shadows.
The story is straight-up noir, Hank is just an ordinary guy who winds up in the criminal underbelly simply because he agreed to watch his neighbor’s cat. That’s it. That’s the catalyst.
Suddenly he’s being chased by Russian mobsters, a terrifying corrupt cop (Regina King), and a wild card enforcer (Bad Bunny). It’s a “bureaucratic nightmare” of violence in which everyone believes Hank has the MacGuffin, and no one thinks he’s innocent.
With an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the critics have already determined what the general movie-going audience failed to see in theaters. Caught Stealing isn’t just a movie, it’s a mood. It’s a throwback to an era when action films had texture, when heroes were humble folk enduring a genuinely awful day, and survival wasn’t about saving the world — it was just about making it to the next morning.
Caught Stealing is the sort of movie that sneaks up on you – sharp, frenetic, bruised in both tone and spirit, and infused with a style we had no idea Aronofsky was capable of. It may have been a box office flop, but it’s a matter of time. With its gritty ‘98 vibe, an amazing career-best performance from Austin Butler, and a tone that is at once both panicked and infuriatingly funny, this movie is going to find a cult audience once the word gets out about what they missed in theaters. There are times when the loudest success stories aren’t the best films – but the ones that live with you the longest, after the lights come up.
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Learn how James Cameron's Avatar trilogy transformed blockbuster cinema through groundbreaking technology, emotional storytelling, and franchise evolution.
There are few film franchises that work on the kind of timescale James Cameron likes to work on. Hollywood rushes to quickly churn out sequels, spin-offs and streaming extensions, the Avatar saga moves at a geological pace — slow, meditative, technologically transformative every time it arrives. With Avatar (2009), Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) and the newly released Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025), Cameron hasn’t simply made movies; he’s built cinematic milestones that push the boundaries of what is possible with each return.
What makes these films so interesting to assess is that none of the entry is “just” a sequel — they’re landmarks —- technical, narrative, commercial and even cultural. And while the first Avatar transformed global exhibition forever and the second perfected underwater storytelling, early indications are that Fire and Ash may well be the most aesthetically complete and emotionally resilient installment yet.
Let’s analyze how this legendary trilogy has progressed.
Avatar came out when cinema was about a different planet. 3D showings were scarce, digital projection was erratic, and a troupe of performance-captured aliens conveying real emotion seemed like far-off sci-fi. Cameron sat on the idea for more than a decade while waiting for technology to catch up and then invented the technology.
A Technological Shockwave
The Fusion Camera System, full CGI real-time environments, and microexpression capture were not merely improvements, they were revolutions. Critics weren’t just reviewing the movie, they were reviewing the experience. Audiences were going to be able to walk into theaters and walk on to Pandora.
Perfectly Executed Simple Storyline
Cameron deliberately employed a classical story structure, with clear stakes, emotional accessibility and mythic hero’s journey elements. It’s been criticized the screenplay for being predictable or pandering to “white savior” clichés, but it maintains that the film’s brilliance resides in its simplicity. You learn Pandora the way Jake learns it, which causes a rare emotional convergence between audience and protagonist.
Surprisingly, no cinematic “first contact” sequence has matched the wonder of that inaugural flight over the floating mountains.
Now, 13 years on and many were asking if Avatar still mattered. Marvel was dominating the box office, streaming was messing with everything, and 3D was just a gimmick. Cameron defied every skepticism the way he always does: by reinventing cinema again.
Underwater Performance Capture: A New Frontier
From authentic underwater motion capture to sophisticated fluid dynamics, Cameron cracked one of the toughest problems in CGI: actual water. The visual result was stunning—critics described it as “hyper-real,” and audiences loved the immersion.
A More Mature, Family-Driven Story
While the first movie was about discovery, the sequel was about consequence. Jake and Neytiri were no longer warriors—they were parents. Their children’s story arcs, particularly Lo’ak’s connection to Payakan, infused the narrative with emotional resonance that was absent from the first chapter.
Reviews were divided over the film’s running time and repetitive capture-rescue formula, but it was received with far greater enthusiasm by audiences, who bestowed a 90% audience score, even higher than the original.
Financially, the film made $2.32 billion, cementing its position as the third highest-grossing movie of all time.
Initial impressions of Fire and Ash indicate something that rarely occurs in franchise filmmaking: the third movie may be the best one.
A Bold Narrative Shift
The advent of the Ash People, a Na’vi clan forged by disaster and spiritually disconnected from Eywa, represents the largest transformation the franchise has ever undergone. Their leader, Varang, portrayed by Oona Chaplin, comes into alignment with the RDA not for avarice but for grief and fury.
For the first time, Cameron’ s realm has a crisis of conscience within the Na’vi, which responds to a nagging criticism that Pandora’s politics were too clear-cut. Echoing comparisons include this tonal turn being similar to The Empire Strikes Back — darker, more complex and emotionally heavier.
Aesthetic and Technical Leap
If The Way of Water achieved fluidity on rendering, then Fire and Ash is certainly on its way to mastering volatility are fire, smoke, ash, and ruin. New fire simulations and improved HFR transitions deliver a more atmospheric, perilous Pandora as never before.
Early reviews hail:
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The answer is what do you prize the most?
Should Fire and Ash live up to its promise, it could be the movie that at last brings critics and fans together — delivering not only beauty and spectacle, but moral intricacy and a shattering emotional pay-off befitting a saga this ambitious.
The Avatar saga isn’t merely a franchise—it’s a cinematic era that extends with each generation of technology and storytelling. Avatar (2009) revolutionised the way the world watches movies and The Way of Water pushed emotion and technical refinement to new heights, Avatar: Fire and Ash is set to become the most ambitious chapter in the trilogy.
Featuring darker themes, complex Na’vi politics, and revolutionary fire simulation, the third may be the one that finally brings critics, fans, and industry analysts into lockstep agreement — Cameron’s slow-burn storytelling was always driving here. If early reviews are anything to go by, Fire and Ash will not only reshape Pandora, but also redefine blockbuster filmmaking itself.
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