Movie Monday: ‘Tron: Ares’ Constructs a Win but Can’t Escape the Grid

In the world of football, it doesn’t matter how pretty your wins are. Whether you beat a team by two points or 20, it counts just the same.

But when it comes to the box office? Not so much.

Take the case of Disney’s Tron: Ares, the third installment in the 43-year-old Tron franchise. If you take a quick look at the box office, you’ll see that Ares won the weekend handily, clearing an estimated $33.5 million in North America and more than quadrupling the earnings of its nearest competitor.

But given that Disney spent an estimated $180 million to make Ares (not including marketing costs), and considering prognosticators expected Ares to make more than $40 million in its domestic debut, that $33.5 mil doesn’t look quite so rosy.

It’s possible that Tron: Ares could still turn its digital ship around. It earned another $27 million overseas, bringing its global total to an estimated $60.5 million. And its forbear, Tron: Legacy, started a little slow itself—and it went on to earn nearly $410 million.

Another newcomer, Roofman, finished just below the box office’s own ceiling. The Channing Tatum film scraped up $8 million domestically in its first weekend, which feels just about enough to open its own Toys ‘R’ Us store.

One Battle After Another continued to hold strong, earning just under $6.7 million in its third full weekend of release. The Oscar hopeful has now earned $54.5 million stateside and about $138 million worldwide.

Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie finished the weekend in fourth place, earning nearly $3.4 million en route. Since it opened Sept. 26, Gabby’s Dollhouse has lapped up about $26.4 million in North America, and nearly $46 million worldwide. That’s not exactly a purrrfect take, but it’s not too shabby, either.

In fifth place we find Soul on Fire, an inspirational, Christian-esque biopic inspired by John O’Leary. It earned $3 million in its opening weekend—a nice beginning for what I thought was a very nice movie.

Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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