{"id":214152,"date":"2025-10-15T02:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/214152\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T02:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:23:07","slug":"jared-letos-draw-questioned-by-insiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/214152\/","title":{"rendered":"Jared Leto’s Draw Questioned By Insiders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere he stood, in a red raincoat draped dramatically over a white suit, perched 30 feet above Piccadilly Circus for the Oct.\u202f1 London premiere of Tron: Ares<\/a>. What was Jared Leto<\/a> doing up there, greeting his public like some interstellar overlord? <\/p>\n

\n\tDrumming up excitement for his latest blockbuster release, of course. The stunt was straight out of the Leto playbook \u2014 involving bombast, tall buildings and shoulder-length hair jostled by the elements \u2014 but didn\u2019t succeed at its primary mission: driving audiences to theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\tLike a Light Cycle slamming into a Jetwall, Tron: Ares was savagely derezzed <\/a>at the box office this weekend, bringing in at least $10 million less than its projected opening gross. The Disney sci-fi tentpole pulled in a dismal $33.2 million from 4,000 theaters against a net production budget of at least $180 million. Overseas, the sci-epic also failed to connect, grossing $27 million for a global start of $60.2 million. Some at Disney were always concerned only die-hard fans should show up, which isn\u2019t a Leto issue but an IP problem. They were right; 18- to 24-year-old males, the sweet spot, badly underindexed. Combined with a bland B+ CinemaScore, sources say Tron will likely retire from the big screen.<\/p>\n

\n\tLeto appreciates spectacle. How else would you describe an actor who scales the Empire State Building, climbing from the 86th floor observatory to the 104th floor, all to promote his band 30 Seconds to Mars? Why? \u201cEver since I was a kid, I was fascinated with the Empire State Building,\u201d Leto told Jimmy Fallon.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut stunts might not be enough to distract from a spate of negative headlines after Air Mail collected nine allegations<\/a> from women who described disturbing conduct, ranging from flirtatious overtures when they were minors to episodes of exposure. His representatives denied everything. But alarmed Disney executives had no idea whether other accusations might emerge.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt didn\u2019t happen, and Leto embarked on a global promo tour. He was the face of the Ares: Tron campaign and was a consummate professional throughout, studio insiders say. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter he earned high seven figures for the role, plus a seven-figure producing fee. <\/p>\n

\n\tHe next stars in MGM\/Mattel\u2019s Masters of the Universe as He-Man\u2019s high-pitched antagonist Skeletor. It could be a good career move \u2014 embodying the iconic, skull-faced fantasy villain who walks a line between genuine menace and camp.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYet likely over are the days where Leto could, through sheer willpower and in-the-room charisma, push through a greenlight as he did with Tron. Ares originally was conceived as a straightforward follow-up to 2010\u2019s Tron: Legacy, itself a modest success, having grossed $400 million worldwide against a $170 million net production budget. \u201cThe first iteration of the [Ares] script was a different movie, but it had a character named Ares,\u201d\u00a0screenwriter Jesse Wigutow told<\/a> Polygon for an Oct. 11 story.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe version ultimately was shelved by Disney. But Leto wouldn\u2019t give up. It didn\u2019t hurt that he had a powerful ally in his corner \u2014 Sean Bailey, who was hired to run Disney\u2019s live-action studio in 2010 by former Disney topper Rich Ross after he produced Tron: Legacy. And he also had goodwill from his lauded earlier dramatic work in\u00a0Dallas Buyers Club\u00a0(winning him a supporting actor Oscar) and\u00a0Requiem for a Dream.\u00a0The pitch worked, and by 2017, Leto was elevated to producer, and the movie\u2019s narrative was reframed so that the protagonist became Ares, his character. Leto not only got his Tron movie \u2014 he was now the star. (Bailey, the movie\u2019s chief proponent within the studio, was shown the door last year, but has a producing deal at Disney.)<\/p>\n

\n\tBut now the kinds of hefty paydays Leto earned for Ares could be in the past, as an agency partner says that studios already had stepped away from the actor as a leading-man choice after the failure of Sony\u2019s Spider-Man universe spinoff Morbius, which opened to $39 million stateside en route to a not-good $167 million globally in 2022. \u201cIn a world where Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor and Benedict Cumberbatch are having a hard time getting lead roles, why would you even go to a person who can\u2019t open a movie and who has question marks around him as a person?\u201d asks one top talent manager partner.<\/p>\n

\n\t With Ares flopping, the insider says Leto\u2019s currency in town has run colder than Morbius\u2019 vampire blood. To be clear, the flameout of Tron isn\u2019t Leto\u2019s burden alone. \u201cYou could have had Ryan Gosling, it wasn\u2019t going to work,\u201d says the first agency partner. \u201cNo one asked for this reboot. If you say, \u2018Tron: Ares is good, we just needed a different actor,\u2019 you\u2019re deluding yourself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story first appeared in the Oct. 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.\u00a0Click here to subscribe<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There he stood, in a red raincoat draped dramatically over a white suit, perched 30 feet above Piccadilly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,122860,344,2267],"class_list":{"0":"post-214152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-jared-leto","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-tron-ares"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}