Meanwhile, Roofman comes in at number 2 and One Battle After Another stays in the top three for a third week.

Taylor Swift is gone but Nine Inch Nails are in. At least they are responsible for the music for this weekend's big decades-old Disney franchise sequel. Forty-three years combined in between sequels to the 1982 original. Are audiences still fascinated with the game grid? Does anyone truly remember the Legacy? Which film has more in common with the original Tron? Is it Ares or Roofman? You will have to see the former to answer that half but you can read on for the connection to the latter.

Back in 1982, Disney introduced everyone to the world of Tron with its revolutionary special effects in a summer dominated by science fiction. Its $17 million budget was not even in the top ten of the most expensive pictures that year (Annie and The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas both cost more than double) and it grossed a modest $33 million. It took 28 years for a sequel to be mounted and when it did in 2010, Tron: Legacy gave us director Joseph Kosinski. It opened to $44 million and middling reviews (51%), finishing with over $172 million domestic and $400 million globally on a $170 million budget. Both Tron films were considered minor disappointments.

So here we are 15 years later with Tron: Ares with director Joachim Rønning at the helm, who has worked with Disney on previous high-profile sequels, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (29%) and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (40%) as well as last year's barely released Young Woman and the Sea, which the studio would not even report grosses on, despite critics being much more favorable towards it (85%). Ares arrives with another rotten 56% score, slightly higher than Tron: Legacy, and a $35 million opening, a bit lower than Tron: Legacy and even lower than the Jared Leto led Morbius ($39 million). Also slightly higher is Ares' budget of $180 million, which moves in the wrong direction of a franchise whose legacy is more nostalgia for the original film and a helluva coin-op video game.

Ares' start ranks only 33rd of all-time October openings; nine of which ahead of it did not reach $100 million (Halloween Kills, Halloween Ends, Paranormal Activity 2, High School Musical 3, Joker: Folie a Deux, Annabelle, Red Dragon, and Saw III). The other film on that list was last week's Taylor Swift launch party, which opened to $34 million and was only in theaters for three days. Rønning's Maleficent sequel opened to $36.9 million in 2019, finished with just $113.9 million, and that was still over three times its opening. Disney's High School Musical 3 may not have reached $100 million domestic but at an $11 million budget and a $225 million global haul, it was also their most successful. Overseas, the film has started with just $27 million, resulting in a global $60 million launch. Tron: Ares could prove to be one of their biggest losers this month and of the year, not even making half of what Legacy did. End of line.

Derek Cianfrance's Roofman, with Channing Tatum, opened in second place with $8 million. That's par for the course with Tatum's recent openings of Magic Mike's Last Dance ($8.3 million), Fly Me to the Moon ($9.4 million), and Blink Twice ($7.3 million). All of those films finished between $20-26 million. Roofman reportedly cost less than any of them at around $17 million (as much as the original Tron cost in 1982) and with a modest international haul, the Paramount release (part of a first-look deal with Miramax) could still turn a theatrical profit. Critics have mostly been on board with the charming true-life crime tale (85%). The only films to open under $9 million in October and reach $30 million since 2000 were Oscar contenders 12 Years A Slave and Conclave.

Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another continues to draw praise, as well as controversy, from bad faith actors. But it is still in the top three in its third weekend, adding $6.6 million to its take. That is over $54 million in 17 days -- less than a couple million ahead of where Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon was a few years ago, with DiCaprio and having roughly the same third weekend haul. Maintaining that pace should get the film to $70 million domestic. Flower Moon's international haul was over $86 million. Battle is currently at $75 million. Since Romeo + Juliet in 1996, DiCaprio has only headlined five movies that did not make $150 million globally. Only one (J. Edgar) since 2010. Battle is already at $138 million and likely double the highest worldwide total of Anderson's career. It also currently ranks 40on the list of R-rated films, since 1980, that clock in over 2.5 hours. DiCaprio is in seven films on that list, currently ahead of Battle, including three in the top ten. Killers of the Flower Moon ranks 31. Any red in the ledger will be supplemented by a successful awards run and hearing it represented among some of the greats of modern cinema in years to come.

Rounding out the top five, Universal's family film, Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie, made $3.3 million for a domestic total of $26.4 million and global total of over $46 million. Not great for the $32 million production. However, with over $473 million in the bank worldwide, The Conjuring: Last Rites is one of the most successful films of the year. The domestic audience added $2.9 million to its global haul, which includes over $172 million here at home. On the horror front in the top ten, Renny Harlin's The Strangers: Chapter 2 is only up to $13.5 million after 17 days of release. IFC's canine horror film, Good Boy, stuck around for one more week, making $1.3 million for a total of $4.8 million.

The latest from Sean McNamara, director of Soul Surfer, Bratz, and numerous straight-to-video sequels is his latest contribution to faith-based cinema, Soul On Fire. From Gregory Poirier, the screenwriter of everything from Rosewood to Tomcats to National Treasure: Book of Secrets to A Sound of Thunder, the film opened to $3 million in 1,720 theaters. The best opening of 2025 for a live-action faith presentation in theaters that wasn't also a TV show has been Angel Studios' The Last Rodeo with $5.4 million. McNamara saw some late summer box office last year for Reagan which opened to $7.6 million, finished over $30 million, but also carried a budget of $25 million, and made less than $60,000 overseas who wanted nothing to do with the former President.

Five weekends in the top ten for the anime Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Infinity Castle. $2.2 million brings its total up over $128 million. That makes it the 9 highest-grossing animated film since 2023. Also that list of R-rated films over 150 minutes since 1980 -- Infinity Castle currently ranks 14. However, it has now passed Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to rank second on the all-time list for films released not in the English language. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ remains the all-timer. Globally, Infinity Castle has grossed $648 million.

But the sound that Indy the dog, along with many of us, hears is not the landing of punches or the crashing of bodies to the mat, but A24 shifting their awards muscle towards Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme. Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine is so down and out that Dwayne Johnson has already conceded with a thank you to those who did go out to see it. In weekend two, it is down 69% to $1.8 million and just $9.8 million after ten days at a cost of $50 million. Smashed indeed. The film has made less money than Snitch did in its opening weekend in 2013. That was the second lowest opening of Johnson's leading man career. Now it's the third lowest.

Bill Condon's $30 million adaptation of the musical version of Kiss of the Spider Woman was in 1,330 theaters this weekend. It grossed just $850,000 for a per-theater-average of just $639. Another Oscar contender going bye-bye. Speaking of which, Luca Guadagnino's After the Hunt, his first film to receive a negative score from critics (44%), made $154,000 in six theaters. It expands into 1,200 theaters next week. Meanwhile, Mary Bronstein's If I Had Legs I'd Kick You with Rose Byrne, released by A24, has a 94% with critics and it made $89,000 in four theaters.

Ethan Hawke returns as The Grabber in Scott Derrickson's Black Phone 2, the sequel to the $90 million hit from 2022 that has a 79% with critics after its Fantastic Fest premiere last month. Doing even better is Aziz Ansari's Good Fortune with Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves, currently rocking an 83% from its premiere in Toronto. And the first of two Richard Linklater films this year, Blue Moon, also with Hawke and Margaret Qualley, opens in limited release. It has a 94% currently with critics.

Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast. [box office figures via Box Office Mojo]

Thumbnail image by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection