Walt Disney’s Tron has already tried twice and has failed, in much more lenient theatrical settings, in a commercially viable film franchise.
Tron: Legacy opened in December 2010 as an unusually cynical attempt to convince viewers that the modern, futuristic action fantasy founded the next Avatar or Lord of the Rings in Disney video games just because they said so. No movie stars (with the exception of Jeff Bridges who reprises his lead role in the 1982 version), attractive characters or boys in the path of a coherent script, the film has controlled in its images, its Daft-Punk score and that Christmas that year. big season. The film directed through Joseph Kosinski, and yes, the eyebrows rose in front of a young white man with no delight in the direction as a director, who won a mega-budget franchise film, one of Disney’s attempts to create another fantasy action franchise for boys similar to Pirates of the Caribbean. With combined reviews and $171 million nationally and $400 million out of a budget of $170 million, it’s (default) the group’s top success.
In terms of advertising success, it earned more than Prince of Persia ($330 million from a $200 million budget) and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice ($215 million /$150 million). It is a major success than John Carter ($284 million /$250 million) in 2012 and The Lone Ranger ($260 million /$220 million) in 2013. These two opened after Disney more commonly beyond looking to make the next Pirates of the Caribbean. In fact, A) had purchased Marvel in late 2009 for $4 billion, then Lucasmovie at the end of 2012 for an additional $4 billion and B) had massive hits in 2010 with Alice in Wonderland ($1.025 billion/$200 million) and Tangled ($599 million). / $260 million). The latter, an animated film through Rapunzel, was criticized for replacing his name and a marketing crusade that focused his male love co-starring/sexy/cool, as well as rumors that Tangled would be Disney’s newest fairy tale. / Princess Toon.
I don’t know how true those proclamations were, because The Snow Queen (who would eventually become Frozen) has been in some form of serious progression at least since 2008. There was a time when Disney obsessively pursued the demographics of young children and supposedly contemptuously or embarrassed of its popularity among young girls. Ironically, they began to dominate the market, beyond the MCU films, once they stopped looking to copy Pirates of the Caribbean and began copying Alice in Wonderland and Tangled (Maleficent, The Force Awakens, Frozen, Inside Out, etc.). If they had learned that Pirates was both The story of Elizabeth Swann and Jack Sparrow’s, or That of Will Turner and the fandom as probably as impartial as the Harry Potter series, Disney might have had less of a “generic white boy” who discovers that he is the special and wins the Fantastic Flops of the sexy girl before Kevin Feige and Kathleen Kennedy save their buttocks.
Universal has planned in advance a spin-off starring Snow White’s Chris Hemsworth and the hunter even before the release of Kristen Stewart’s film. This was particularly cruel, given that Stewart would have been roasted in an open chimney if Snow White had failed and still been ejected from her own franchise (with rumors that it was because she had been caught with snow White’s director, Rupert. Sanders) even after earning $375 million from a budget of $175 million. And yes, this mindset, along with understanding escape sequels like Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, The Bourne Supremacy and The Dark Knight, has taken Solo enthusiasts A Star Wars Story, Dredd, MacGruber, John Carter, Pacific Rim and, yes, Tron: Legacy, arguing that next time would be better. But you had to have a successful movie before you could have an escape sequel. So what happened?
There is no Dredd 2, John Carter 2 or Solo 2. MacGruber gets a Peacock TV show, which is probably appropriate, and we may only have Tron 3. Legendary’s Pacific Rim: Lifting a quirk in which is the rare moment when Hollywood went and made a sequel to a workplace bomb thinking “next time would be different.” Without director Guillermo del Toro, Pacific Rim: Uprising raised only $60 million nationally and $290 million from a $150 million budget. American soldier. Joe: Retaliation generated $376 million from a $130 million budget, if only for a 3-d conversion and the presence of Dwayne Johnson, but it’s not a reborn franchise. Oh, and Hemsworth’s The Huntsman: Winter’s War brought the depraved queen of Charlize Theron from the dead and added Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain and still bombed in early 2016, earning only $167 million from a $115 million budget.
Now there’s a case to show that Disney believes it’s been so close to good luck with Tron: Legacy that you might try again to produce equivalent or larger results, give or expand the box’s workplace abroad. $400 million worldwide, adding $171 million nationally and only $18 million in China for a mega budget sequel to a cult sci-fi film from the 1980s, Blade Runner 2049 wants to have disappointed in this way and I think WB and Alcon will. be extremely happy if Dune flirts with such an outcome. Since Disney has not been able to create new open-air franchises from acquired brands (MCU, Pixar, Lucasmovie, etc.) and legacy homes (its animated classics), it can be argued that Tron 3 is not a crazier concept in 2022. that Tron: Legacy was in 2010. However, the challenge with Tron is the same as with Huntsman, GI Joe and Pacific Rim. The public has already tried the products and said “No, thank you.”
Without Kosinski in the director’s chair, without (apparently) no cast member (Bridges, Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Cillian Murphy, etc.) coming back, is no longer a genuine sequel to Tron: Legacy that Pacific Uprising was “what the enthusiasts wanted. “From Pacific Rim: Uprising (a film that cynically killed fan favorite Rinko Kikuchi so that a Chinese character played through Jing Tian simply takes the lead). It’s just a Tron movie, without the branded characters or the goodwill of the audience of the latest installments. Hell, apples and oranges perhaps, but at least one theoretical sequel to Alita: Battle Angel ($405 million out of a $170 million budget) would have Rosa Salazar’s beloved main character. Speaking of China, yes, the market has grown, but A) China now has as much to do with DC/MCU superheroes as we in the United States and B) China has its own local blockbusters and possibly won’t automatically rush the next supposedly large Disney title of the franchise.
When Tron was a triumph never before seen in the fantasy of some other global and revolutionary special effects, he raised $33 million from a $17 million budget. When Tron: Legacy was able to sell itself as this year’s glorified Avatar (with local cinematography at 3-d), the film still grossed $400 million, that’s less than The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ($415 million). of a budget of $155 million) and Clash of Titans ($493 million / $125 million). Wrath of the Titans opened two years later and raised only $301 million from a $150 million budget, it’s a better combination of monsters. The story shows that when audiences say “No, thank you” to more Terminator sequels, “Dark Phoenix” adaptations or Pacific Rim movies, they mean it. Sometimes a successful film is not a new franchise, but near failure. In today’s ruthless theatrical setting, the Tron series will have almost no luck.
I studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an analysis in the workplace, for almost 30 years. I’ve written a lot about everything
I studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an analysis in the workplace, for almost 30 years. I have written extensively on all these topics over the more than 11 years. My media reviews of films, workplace reviews and film prejudice scholarships have included the Huffington Post, the Hall and the Threat of Cinema. Follow me on @ScottMendelson and like The Ticket Booth on Facebook.