Box Office: ‘Tron’ Hits the Skids With $33.5M Opening, ‘Roofman’ No. 2 at $8 million

Disney’s reboot Tron: Ares malfunctioned badly in its box office debut, coming in well behind expectations with a domestic opening of $33.5 million from 4,000 theaters. Unless it can solve its problem quickly, it will once and for all end hopes of rebooting a sci-fi franchise that began more than four decades ago when the first film became a cult classic.

Overseas — where the sci-fi genre is an ever harder sell — Ares also disappointed with a debut of $27 million for a global start of $60.5 million. It unfurled everywhere save for China, where it opens next weekend.

Heading into the weekend, the big-budget event pic had been tracking to open to $40 million to $45 million domestically (at one point, $50 million was even a possibility) against a hefty net production budget of $180 million before marketing. The threequel, which spent a decade in development, opens 15 years after Tron: Legacy started off in theaters with $44 million on its way to earning $409.9 million globally, not adjusted for inflation. Ares was shepherded by former Disney exec Sean Bailey when serving as head of the Disney’s live-action studio.

The hope now is that solid audience scores can make up for decidedly mixed reviews. Its current critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes is 57 percent, while the audience ranking is much better at 87 percent. And it got four out of five stars on PostTrak.

Norwegian Disney vet Joachim Rønning directs the third film, which stars Jared Letoas the eponymous program, Ares, Greta Leeas Eve Kim, CEO of ENCOM, the tech corporation at the center of the series since the start, and Evan Peters as baddie Julian Dillinger. The pic’s net production budget is at least $180 million.

Another new major studio offering this weekend is Miramax and Paramount’s romantic crime-caper comedy Roofman, starring Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst. Derek Cianfrance directed the pic, which co-stars LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple and Peter Dinklage.

Roofman came in on the low end of expectations with a $8 million opening against a modest $19 budget production budget (tracking had it debuting at $8 million to $10 million). Miramax produced and financed the film, which hoped to serve as counter-programming for females not interested in Tron or the myriad of male-skewing films dominating the marquee. So far, however, more males than females are showing up to see the film, though that could change on Saturday and Sunday.

Unlike Tron, it boasts strong reviews, while audience exits are relatively similar. It’s Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score is presently 85 percent, while the audience score is 84 percent. Both films received a B+ from polling service CinemaScore.

Based on a true story, Roofman follows the adventures of an Army veteran and struggling father who turns to robbing McDonald’s restaurants by cutting holes in their roofs, earning him the nickname Roofman. After escaping prison, he secretly lives inside a Toys “R” Us for six months, surviving undetected while planning his next move, but his double life begins to unravel when he falls in love.

Another new nationwide offering is Soul of Fire, from Sony’s faith-based Affirm label. The movie earned an underwhelming $3 million opening for a sixth-place finish. The good news: the movie reportedly cost a net $3 million to produce and earned an A CinemaScore. It is doing best in America’s heartland and the south.

At the specialty box office, Amazon MGM Studios is going the platform route with Luca Guadagnino’s psychological thriller After the Hunt, starring Julia Roberts. It’s paying off so far; the movie opened in 17 theaters for a promising per-location average of $25,745. The awards contender, which also stars Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny, made the rounds at the fall film festivals and is about a sexual assault accusation that tears apart Yale’s philosophy department.

The score for After the Hunt is from Trent ReznorandAtticus Ross, who are on double duty, having also done the score for Tron: Ares (in the latter they are credited by their band’s name, Nine Inch Nails).

Among holdovers, Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is looking at a third-place finish with an estimated weekend gross of $6.8 million to $7 million, a drop of around 40 percent. Many box office pundits are stumped that the high-profile awards contender from Warner Bros. isn’t holding in stronger after earning a coveted A+ CinemaScore, but the film’s fate is far from being decided (it is only in its third outing).

Dwayne Johnson-starrer The Smashing Machine appears to be collapsing in its second weekend after getting snubbed by audiences, despite solid reviews. The A24 pic could drop nearly 70 percent to $1.8 million for a paltry 10-day domestic total of $9.8 million and an eighth-place finish. The movie, which kicked off its awards campaign with a splashy world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, marks Johnson’s first foray into Oscar territory. The Benny Safdie-directed pic cost $50 million to produce before marketing, a high price-tag for an indie pic.

More to come.