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.
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