‘Tron: Ares’ Is Coming to Disney+ on January 7

For those of you waiting to watch ‘Tron: Ares’ at home, it will release to Disney+ on January 7, 2026.  Judging by the box office, many of you wanted to wait for it to hit Disney+ because you were not at the theater. We went on preview day and were the only two people in the theater. Maybe it will perform better on Disney+?

Here is the synopsis:

“Mankind encounters AI beings for the first time when a highly sophisticated programme, Ares, leaves the digital world for a dangerous mission in the real world.”

Theatrically, the film earned $142 million worldwide and cost about $348 million to make. This means the film lost a ton of money.

Why did it fail so hard?

There are a few reasons.

• The first being that the ‘Tron’ franchise has never been a big one. The first film did poorly when it was released.  “Tron: Legacy” did better and set up a future for the franchise, but “Tron: Ares” came years too late and put the focus on Jared Leto’s “Ares” character instead of Sam Flynn and Quorra. While it seemed they were being set up for another film, I doubt Disney will do one after the terrible performance of “Tron: Ares.”
• Another reason the film likely flopped was because there was no Tron in “Tron: Ares,” and I will argue there wasn’t a Tron in “Tron: Legacy” either. Yes, I know that Rinzler was Tron, but it wasn’t actually Tron.
• The economy is another reason people likely didn’t go see “Tron: Ares”. Inflation is insane, and the holidays were coming, so many likely didn’t go because they were waiting to spend money on “must-see” theatrical releases like “Zootopia 2” or “Wicked For Good.”
• My final reason is that Disney did this to themselves by teaching people to wait for streaming.  Unless it is a film people feel they need to see in theaters, they will simply wait for streaming.

No matter why it failed theatrically, it is coming to Disney+, and this will be the real test of audience interest. If it performs well on Disney+, it would mean that interest exists, but it didn’t perform well theatrically because people didn’t want to spend money on it. However, if it does poorly, it means that no one cares at all, and could mean the end of line for “Tron” as a franchise.

What do you think? Comment and let us know!