Box Office: ‘Tron: Ares’ Stalls With $33.5M Opening, ‘Roofman’ and ‘After the Hunt’ Find Stronger Buzz

Disney

Disney’s long-awaited ‘Tron’ reboot sputters out of the gate, while A24 and Amazon MGM quietly win the weekend’s conversation.

The first weekend of October brought a mix of spectacle, surprise, and soft landings at the box office — led, fittingly, by a high-tech franchise that couldn’t reboot itself. Tron: Ares, Disney’s decade-in-the-making third entry in the cyber-sci-fi saga, malfunctioned in its domestic debut, opening to a muted $33.5 million from over 4,000 theaters. Despite premium screens accounting for nearly 70% of ticket sales, the Jared Leto-led blockbuster came in roughly $10 million below projections, marking a disappointing start for a film meant to revive the long-dormant property.



Globally, Ares earned $60.5 million, including $27 million overseas, with China yet to open. It’s a steep fall from 2010’s Tron: Legacy, which launched with $44 million domestically and ended its run at nearly $410 million worldwide. Directed by Joachim Rønning (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil), Tron: Ares stars Leto as a sentient program navigating the human world, alongside Greta Lee and Evan Peters. Despite striking visuals and a score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (credited as Nine Inch Nails), the film has drawn lukewarm critical response — 57% on Rotten Tomatoes — though audiences have been more forgiving, giving it an 87% audience rating and a B+ CinemaScore.


The result likely spells the end of Disney’s long-running attempt to reignite the Tron brand. With a production cost of around $180 million, even the film’s strong premium-format turnout may not save it from becoming another casualty of franchise fatigue.

Paramount

The weekend’s other wide release, Miramax and Paramount’s Roofman, proved modest but encouraging. The Channing Tatum–Kirsten Dunst crime caper opened to $8 million from 3,362 theaters — a small-scale success given its $19 million budget. Directed by Derek Cianfrance (The Place Beyond the Pines), the true-story-inspired film follows an Army veteran who becomes a fast-food thief known as the “Roofman.” While more men than women showed up (ironically, given the marketing push toward female audiences), the film’s 85% critics’ score and solid B+ CinemaScoresuggest steady word of mouth.


Faith-based audiences showed up for Sony’s Soul of Fire, which debuted to $3 million from 1,730 theaters — nearly matching its production budget. The inspirational drama earned an A CinemaScore, performing strongest in the Midwest and South.


Meanwhile, the specialty box office continued to deliver some of the year’s most interesting stories. A24’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You kicked off in four theaters with an impressive $27,000 per-theater average, while Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt — starring Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, and Andrew Garfield — opened even stronger, earning a $25,745 per-theater average from six locations. The Amazon MGM release, fresh off its fall festival run, continues to generate awards buzz for Roberts’ performance and Guadagnino’s cerebral direction. Fittingly, both After the Hunt and Tron: Aresshare composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, marking one of the year’s more unusual crossover trivia points.



Elsewhere, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another continued its slow-burn climb, taking in $6.7 millionfor a domestic total of $42 million and a global cume of $138 million after just three weeks. The Warner Bros. release, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, remains a major awards-season player despite a slight 39% drop.


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The Conjuring: Last Rites crossed the $473 million global mark, cementing its place as one of 2025’s most profitable studio hits, while Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle made history as the highest-grossing international film ever at the U.S. box office, surpassing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with $128.6 million domestic and $648 million worldwide.



Not all holdovers fared as well. A24’s The Smashing Machine — the Venice-launched MMA biopic starring Dwayne Johnson — collapsed in its second weekend, dropping nearly 70% to $1.7 million. With a cumulative $9.8 million domestic, the $50 million film now looks unlikely to recover, despite critical acclaim and awards chatter for Johnson’s performance.


It’s an unusually fragmented October frame: blockbusters underperforming, indies overperforming, and audiences seemingly dividing between high art and nostalgia fatigue. If Tron: Ares was meant to reboot a legacy, this weekend suggests that no amount of neon light can illuminate a franchise that’s run out of electricity.



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