Disney’s TRON: ARES won the box office race by earning $33.5M in its opening weekend. Paramount’s ROOFMAN also appeared this weekend and finished with $8.0M in second place. These two openers led the overall weekend box office to a disappointing $70.3M overall. Unfortunately, theatres missed out by not having any contribution from last week’s one-and-done first-place finisher, Taylor Swift’s THE OFFICIAL RELEASE PARTY OF A SHOWGIRL.
This same weekend last year grossed $73.1M for all films, led by $18.9M from Cineverse’s horror film TERRIFIER 3. Next weekend, Universal is offering its own horror sequel, BLACK PHONE 2, which is expected to outsell all other films. It will be compared to Paramount’s horror sequel SMILE 2, which earned $23.0 million in its mid-October opening last year.
Actually, the performance from TRON: ARES was quite good considering that we are in the middle of what has traditionally been the dog days of October, after the summer releases but before the November and December holiday rush. Here is a rundown of the top 5 finishers of the weekend.
FIRST PLACE
TRON: ARES, from Disney, $33.5M domestically and $60.5M globally. This is the third chapter in the sci-fi adventure franchise that began in 1982 with the original TRON movie and was followed in 2010 with TRON: LEGACY. TRON: ARES is considered a soft reboot or standalone sequel to the original TRON. All told, the franchise is 43 years old and has always relied on its special visual effects.
Director Joachim Ronning contracted with George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic to create a stunningly visual film. He has said that they considered ARES to be “the Holy Grail of computer graphics,” encouraging their VFX teams to push boundaries.
Until now, Ronning’s best-known film has been PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES from 2017. In the early days of planning a sequel to TRON: LEGACY, filmmaker Garth Davis (LION, 2016) was considered for direction, but COVID-19 intervened, and the project stalled.
In 2023, Ronning was brought on board to replace Davis, but production was further delayed by that year’s Writers’ and Actors’ strikes. At long last, in January 2024, filming got underway in Vancouver, Canada. The cast is an impressive one, led by Jared Leto (MORBIUS from 2022) as Ares, an advanced computer program sent from the digital world into the real world.
Greta Lee (SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE from 2023) plays Eve Kim, the CEO of ENCOM, who is seeking the “Permanence Code”. Evan Peters (X-MEN franchise) plays Julian Dillinger, the CEO of Dillinger Systems, the corporate rival to ENCOM, and Gillian Anderson (X-FILES) plays Elisabeth Dillinger, Julian’s mother.
Amazingly, Jeff Bridges (THE BIG LEBOWSKI from 1998) appears in all three films, over a span of 43 years. In TRON: ARES, he reprises his role as Kevin Flynn from the original movie, in this case acting as the mentor to Ares.
Because it’s 2025, the new story deals with AI and the uncertainty about where it is headed. The plot centers on Ares, a highly advanced digital program dispatched on a secret mission to enter the real world from the virtual origin. His arrival strains the boundary between human and digital existence.
Most critics have never really appreciated the franchise, and TRON: ARES is no exception to that pattern. Rotten Tomatoes has the critics’ score at a meager 57%, with audiences much more positive with their 86% rating. Here are some of the reviews. The San Francisco Chronicle says, “Tron: Ares … revives the digital universe … explores timely themes of AI and identity with sleek visuals and a fast-paced narrative, although its logic and plot can be flimsy.”
The New York Post opined TRON: ARES “is visually spectacular yet narratively simplistic and trades depth for spectacle.” Greta Lee is a bright spot, while Jared Leto’s performance is compared to Morbius. The Hollywood Reporter highlights Jared Leto’s “refreshingly subdued performance” and commends the design for honoring the franchise roots while venturing forward. Screen Rant states that the film’s concept feels “ridiculous,” but that’s precisely what some fans want — an audacious, bold step that leans into the weirdness rather than playing it safe.
The production budget for the film came in at $180M, only $10M higher than TRON: LEGACY in 2010. This multiplies out to a target box office of $450M to break even on that investment. After its domestic opening of $33.5M, it has a distant chance to get there over the weeks ahead.
TRON: LEGACY hit theatres on December 16, 2010, and earned a similar $44.0M in its first three days. TRON: ARES could wind up having a hard time matching TRON: LEGACY’s grosses, because of the very productive pre-Christmas opening date that LEGACY was able to leverage compared with the TRON: ARES October opening. Here is the comparison of the three TRON pictures.
TRON: ARES vs. THE OTHER TRON FILMS
SECOND PLACE
Paramount’s crime drama ROOFMAN took in $8.0M in its opening to wind up in second place out of the movies playing in theatres this weekend. The movie is a biographical story loosely based on the historical character of Jeffrey Manchester, nicknamed “Roofman.” Manchester is a financially struggling former U.S. Army Reserve Non-Commissioned Officer who turns to robbing McDonald’s restaurants by cutting holes in their roofs — hence the moniker “Roofman.” Manchester’s robberies weren’t violent affairs.
He was noted for telling McDonald’s employees to get their jackets before locking them in a freezer, to avoid doing them physical harm. After being captured, convicted, and incarcerated, he manages a daring prison escape and goes on the run. While a fugitive, Manchester hides inside a Toys “R” Us store for around six months, surviving while lying low.
The film is directed by Derek Cianfrance (THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES from 2012). As part of his preparation for the film, Cianfrance says he spoke on the phone with the real-life Manchester 3 to 4 times per week for four years. Because Manchester made the calls from his prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, each conversation was cut off after 15 minutes. Manchester is serving a prison term that is scheduled to last through 2036.
He wanted to have an active role in instructing the director on the making of the movie. The production found an abandoned Toys “R” Us location, refurbished it, and restocked it with retro toys bought on eBay and elsewhere to match the film’s early 2000s era.
The film stars Channing Tatum (MAGIC MIKE from 2012) as Manchester and Kirsten Dunst (the SPIDER-MAN trilogy from the early 2000s). The movie takes place in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Cianfrance chose to shoot the movie there in order to add authenticity. The shoot lasted only 35 days, consuming a production budget of $18M.
Both critics and audiences have given the picture an 85% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “A true-crime story that’s also a tender character study … the film hands Channing Tatum his most soulful role since Foxcatcher.” Screen Rant says, “Channing Tatum Shines in an absurd true story … it provides ample comedy and some solid character beats.” RogerEbert.com calls it, “A slick but incurious film that is so preoccupied with showing the what of Manchester’s story that it doesn’t bother to examine the why.” Variety also highlights Tatum’s performance and says his portrayal of Manchester brings home the fact that he was a kindhearted crook, and the movie has a true 2000s vibe.
Cianfrance is to be complimented for bringing a well-crafted story to the screen with an A-List cast, but produced for a tight budget of only $18M. This means that the film will only need to earn $45M worldwide to become profitable. After snatching $8.0M in its first weekend, it will have to have strong legs to reach that goal. For a comparison film, we have chosen LOGAN LUCKY, another heist film from 2017 that offers quirky humor and sympathetic criminals. Oh, and by the way, Channing Tatum stars in both films.
ROOFMAN vs. LOGAN LUCKY
THIRD PLACE
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER from Warner Bros. brought in $6.7M in its third weekend, a drop of 39% from last weekend. The widely praised comic action thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson has earned $54.5M domestically and $138.5 worldwide.
Its gross from international markets is 60% of its worldwide total, a relatively strong percentage. We expect it will wind up earning $80M in the U.S. and Canada and $200M worldwide. With a production budget of $140M, it will need to earn $350M in global box office to break even, and we do not expect it to reach that mark.
That being said, its glowingly positive reviews from both critics and audiences should help it live on after its theatrical run as a successful movie on streaming. We still have over three months to go until January 22nd, when the Academy Awards nominations are announced.
You can rest assured that Warner Bros. will do everything in its power to keep this film top of mind for Academy voters through post-nomination theatrical rollouts. In hindsight, it seems as if ONE BATTLE could have been even more successful as a summer movie, rather than beginning its run on September 26th. This movie is both an extremely well-crafted Oscar-quality feature and a popcorn movie with significant box office juice.
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER vs. TAKEN after 17 Days
FOURTH PLACE
For the second weekend in a row, Gabby’s Dollhouse is the fourth-place finisher by taking in an additional $3.4M and dropping (-37%) in its third weekend. This brings its 17-day total to $26.4M domestically and $46.0M globally. Even though it held up reasonably well from its second weekend, we are still predicting that the movie will come up short of its $80M bogie to reach profitability.
It continues to track closely with PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE, the film we have selected to use as its closest comparison. Where it is coming up short is in foreign territories. GABBY’S DOLLHOUSE has earned 43% of its total worldwide gross from international markets, whereas PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE grossed 72% of its total from foreign markets. Note that the GABBY’S DOLLHOUSE television show aired in 60 countries, whereas PAW PATROL’s television show has appeared in 160 countries.
GABBY’S DOLLHOUSE: THE MOVIE vs. PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE after 17 Days
FIFTH PLACE
SOUL ON FIRE, a biographical drama produced by Affirm Films and released by Sony, grossed $3.0M and that was good enough to take fifth place. The film is based on the life of John O’Leary, a burn survivor, adapted from his memoir On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life. The story begins when John O’Leary, at age 9, suffers a catastrophic burn injury covering 87% of his body and is initially given little chance to survive.
He spent five months in the hospital recovering after the accident. O’Leary has addressed how faithfully the film follows his book and life, and he approved where the filmmakers used narrative compression or dramatic license to keep the story’s emotional arc. The film sits at the intersection of biography, inspirational drama, and faith-based cinema, thus navigating the challenge of appealing to general audiences while holding a message.
O’Leary grew up in St. Louis, and while production was originally planned for Vancouver, Canada, the filmmakers decided to shoot the film in St. Louis, partly so they could use the real-life locations meaningful in O’Leary’s life. The film is directed by Sean McNamara, known for other works like SOUL SURFER from 2011 and REAGAN from 2023.
The cast is solid with John Corbett (MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, 2002), who plays Denny O’Leary, John’s father. William H. Macy (FARGO, 1996) plays Jack Buck, the famed St. Louis Cardinal baseball announcer who, in real life, was one of the key figures who encouraged and inspired John never to give up.
Joel Courtney (JESUS REVOLUTION, 2023) portrays John O’Leary in the film. Courtney spent quite a lot of time with the real John O’Leary — listening to his speeches, studying his voice, mannerisms, and daily habits — to try to internalize his character.
Not enough critics have weighed in to give it an overall grade. However, audiences are rating it 99%, meaning it should get positive word of mouth. We are estimating that the production budget for this film is approximately $10M based on other faith-based movie storylines and production costs. That means it will have to get to only $25M to be profitable.
However, based on only doing $3.0M in its first weekend, it may not have the staying power in theatres to get into the black. For a comparison film, we have selected SOUL SURFER from 2011, also directed by Sean McNamara. Based on a true story as well, it tells the tale of surfer Bethany Hamilton, who survived a shark attack and regained her courage through faith.
SOUL ON FIRE vs. SOUL SURFER
Where Are We as of 10/9/2025
After 40 weeks, the 2025 domestic box office stands at 104% compared to the same point in 2024 and 76% compared to 2019.
