Even Disney’s Controversial Western Flop Grossed Twice as Much as ’Tron: Ares’ at the Box Office

A veneer of discomfort coats Disney’s mega-budget The Lone Ranger reboot. The movie was released during one of the darkest phases in the studio’s history. A phase that led to a string of costly misfires, forcing Disney to play it safe for years to come. Not too long after the film’s release, both its stars — Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp — were essentially canceled by a large section of the mainstream audience, and blacklisted by major studios. Director Gore Verbinski, once responsible for some of Disney’s biggest hits, was left to rebuild his career from the ground up. And yet, despite how disastrous The Lone Ranger turned out to be, it was still more successful than Disney’s latest dud, Tron: Ares.

Produced on a reported budget of $220 million, the third installment of the science-fiction franchise was meant to introduce the series to a new generation, while also welcoming back the crowds that grew up with the ’80s original, and those who turned 2010’s Tron: Legacy into a cult hit. On paper, Disney had a home run, ticking off an unusually wide demographic that could theoretically turn up to watch the movie, but that wasn’t to be. Tron: Ares had a disappointing debut, and is all but guaranteed to conclude its run with less than $100 million domestically, and will be lucky if it passes the $150 million mark worldwide. Even its predecessor, which was declared an underperformer 15 years ago, made $170 million domestically and more than $400 million worldwide.

Tron: Legacy was released in the same era that produced The Lone Ranger, as well as Mars Needs Moms, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, John Carter, and Tomorrowland. The trouble was that those movies were released after Legacy, and their failure made it financially impossible to produce a sequel immediately. It took Legacy developing a cult following over more than a decade for Ares to be green-lit. Directed by Joachim Rønning, the movie is headlined by Jared Leto, who doesn’t have a great track record at the box office, and has so far grossed a little more than $130 million globally.

Quentin Tarantino Hailed the Film’s Biggest Action Scene

But Depp’s stardom did little to attract the masses to The Lone Ranger. Produced on a reported budget of $250 million, the movie made $260 million worldwide, and was said to have lost the studio as much as $190 million. The Lone Ranger received poor reviews and hasn’t exactly been reclaimed by fans of Westerns, even as the genre has had something of a resurgence in recent years. It’s now sitting at a 31% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp make for an appealing pair of leads, but they’re not enough to make up for The Lone Ranger‘s bland script, bloated length, and blaring action overkill.” Rotten reviews aside, the movie’s grand railway action set-piece earned praise from none other than Quentin Tarantino. You can watch the movie at home on Disney+, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.