Will Tron: Legacy tank at the box office?
Entry posted by Nathan Strum
2,601 views
"Tank"... get it? 
Tron: Legacy is a huge unknown, and a big risk for Disney. The original film, while widely 'recognized' 
as innovative, was hardly boffo box office. However, the arcade game was a huge success, and a dedicated group of hard-core Tron nerds have kept the digital flame alive for nearly 30 years. So Disney obviously must see some potential here, or they wouldn't take the risk, right?
Well, Disney has also produced its fair share of box office bombs over the years. The fact is, it never ceases to amaze me how many bad films get greenlit, get all the way through production, post-production, marketing, and into the theaters before someone finally realizes they're absolutely awful (and usually, it's the poor chumps paying $20 to go see them). After the film bombs, everyone points to bad marketing, or timing, or trends, or performances, direction, editing, competition, etc., as the cause. And while those are all legitimate factors, the fact is, some films are just bad. They lack compelling characters, an engrossing story, or just pure, visceral entertainment value.
The fact that Disney decided to dust off a 28-year-old box office flop and throw many millions of dollars into a sequel is pretty astonishing. Admittedly, I've been excited about the idea of a sequel since the 25th anniversary DVD came out, when the possibility of it was discussed in one of the documentaries (and around the same time, the video game Tron 2.0 was announced). But if even a Tron-nerd like me can still be skeptical about a sequel happening, how on earth did Disney decide to go ahead with it? Timing. A number of different factors all had to come into play, for the time to be right for Tron: Legacy to finally happen:
- First of all, Disney is looking for intellectual properties (like Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars, etc.) that they can repeatedly visit and earn revenue from. This is the reason they bought Pixar. This is the reason they bought Marvel. This is the reason they're making Tron: Legacy. But they wouldn't have taken this step, without some other key elements lining up.
- The digital world has caught up to that of the original movie. The concept of avatars running around a computer system doing our bidding is far more commonplace than it was then. Because of the prevalence of social networking, many people pretty-much live a second life in computers now. Plus, other films like The Matrix have conveyed the idea of people running around in a virtual world, and have done so successfully (not counting its two sequels).
- Video games are more popular than ever (although the freshness of the early 80's era won't ever be reproduced), and Tron is the perfect property to exploit and/or explore that. The video game industry out-earns the film industry now. That certainly had to be a big factor in Disney's decision.
- John Lasseter (the CCO of Disney) has long been a fan of the original Tron, and has said that without Tron, there would have been no Pixar. So Disney's upper echelon is not only behind the film, they're fans of it.
- There's enough distance from the first film so while many people have heard of it, they aren't familiar enough with it to be turned off by it. (Disney has been keeping the original quietly aside for several months now. The DVD is out-of-print, it hasn't been run on TV, and no footage of it has been included in any of the promotional pieces for the new film, that I've seen).
- Jeff Bridges just won an Oscar. Admittedly, this happened after Tron:Legacy was well into production, but that can't but help to broaden the film's appeal. In fact, he's got two big films coming out this month, True Grit being the other one.
Disney is pressing all the right nostalgia buttons with the fans, including a massive interactive viral marketing campaign, free-online games (including the legendary Space Paranoids, a new light cycle and disc battle game, and the classic arcade Tron games), new toys and console games (which are out now), oh-so fleeting glimpses of the film, preview screenings, and a Disneyland tie-in called ElecTRONica featuring a re-creation of Flynn's Arcade.
The marketing effort Disney is throwing behind this film is impressive. I can't recall the last time I've see the full force of the Disney marketing machine brought to bear on a single film like this. Maybe it's just because I'm looking for it, but advertisements seem to be everywhere - billboards (including animated LED ones), bus stop signs, light shows, in-store displays, a huge merchandising push (including a dedicated Tron store in L.A.), commercials, trailers, and on and on.
If the movie fails, it certainly won't be for a lack of trying.
But the question remains... will it be successful?
I think for that to happen, the film needs the following:
- Engaging characters. You have to like these people. You have to want them to acheive their goals. You also need to not just hate the villain, but love to hate the villain. The best movies have the best villains. Given that Jeff Bridges is playing both the hero and the villain - as long as he's given good material to work with - this one should be in the bag. I was really surprised how effective he was as the villain in Iron Man. I'd always just associated Jeff Bridges as "the nice guy", but he's good at being bad, too.
- A good story. The audience has to like the story, and more importantly - understand it. Yes, the audience now is far more tech-savvy than ever, but it would be easy to bog down a film like this in rambling technobabble (again: The Matrix sequels). On the other hand, it has to be believable. Explained in such a way that you buy into what is a really far-fetched premise. And once in the electronic world, it must behave within the rules the film establishes for itself. If it violates those rules, or common sense, it's just going to look stupid.
- It has to be fun. There has to be a pure entertainment value to it. There needs to be action, humor, suspense, pathos, an epic quality, and a good balance of all of the above. I don't expect to come out of a movie like this enlightened. I expect to come out of it feeling like I've just had fun.
- The dialog has to be engaging and well-written, so people don't get bored or confused. It has to be smart, funny and most of all - honest. It has to feel like these characters believe what they're saying. If there's a little camp that's okay - the first movie was full of it, and you'd expect some of that in a premise this ridiculous. But the film itself can't be campy. That's not how the film is being marketed. Nothing will kill a film faster than it being marketed completely contrary to what it actually is.
- It has to be well crafted. A lot of films suffer from poor editing and poor direction. Action scenes and camera moves that are confusing or too fast to follow do not make for an exciting film - they make for one that is hard to watch on the big screen (see: Speed Racer, Star Trek, The Transformers). Part of the problem seems to be filmmakers who are used to watching their work on a desktop-sized HD monitor, and not a three-story high screen. Conversely, the editing can't be so slow that people start looking at their watches, and wondering where they're going to go eat dinner after the movie ends. The film needs to be well paced throughout - taking time where it needs to, moving fast when called for, and most importantly: clearly shot and edited so people can follow what's going on. This is critical here, because the film takes place in a strange environment where they audience does not know its way around, and where characters look very similar to each other (black costumes with glowing lines on them). Fortunately, they seem to be going with the "good guys wear blue, bad guys wear orange" color schemes.
- The film must be visually stunning. What made Tron the groundbreaking film that it was, was that nobody had seen anything like it. CG environments in films are now commonplace, and even more so on video game consoles. We see this stuff all the time. They need to push this beyond anything we've seen before. If not in scope, at least in terms of design. There have been a few glimpses in the trailers that look promising, but I'm hoping they're saving the big stuff for the movie. (As an aside - I'm glad the trailers and commercials have been spoiler-free so far. They're keeping the footage shown to a minimum, which I happen to prefer. I just hope the reason for that is they're holding back the super-cool stuff, and not because that's the only footage that's worth showing.)
- Innovative use of stereoscopic 3-D. I'm encouraged that they shot the film using actual 3-D cameras, and that it wasn't just an afterthought added in post-production. My understanding is that the real-world parts of the film are in 2-D and the computer world is in 3-D. If so, I think that's an excellent idea (very Wizard of Oz-like). I hope they use the opportunity to play with 3-D as a medium, doing things with depth-of-field or scale that really makes the computer world seem unlike anything we've seen before. That said, it can't rely on 3-D, since this will be shown in 2-D as well, and the movie needs to work equally there. But the 3-D should have extra goodness that heightens the movie's computer world.
- The sound should be awesome. Go back and listen to the original Tron. Wendy Carlos' soundtrack perfectly fit the electronic world, and often blended right into the sound effects. It was a cohesive whole. The electronic world needs to sound both familiar, yet completely alien. The music I've heard from Daft Punk seems promising so far.
- It has to please the original Tron fans. If it doesn't hit their core audience, Disney has failed. Bad word of mouth about a film spreads instantly, and if the Tron fans are displeased, that's going to kill the film. If they're excited, then others may be more encouraged to see it (or more discouraged, if they really hated the first film
). To do this, Tron Legacy must respect the original film, and not disregard its canon. While the new film certainly won't be as campy as the original, there should still be some of the lightness, tongue-in-cheek humor, and playfulness that Tron had. Not enough to make it seem silly or damage its credibility as a more serious film, but enough to lighten the mood in appropriate places, and engender a sense of affection for it. Some references to the original wouldn't hurt either, as would Easter Eggs for fans to discover (it would also help generate repeat business, as people went back and looked for hidden gems). Also, while it's great to see Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner return, why not other cameos from the original film? Could David Warner (Dillinger/Sark) now be a janitor at Encom? Could Bruce as Tron make an appearance? How about Dan Shor (RAM)? Cindy Morgan (Laura/Yori)? There should also be some references in the soundtrack to the original Tron music. Just subtle homages would be fine, but it would be really disappointing to never hear the original Tron theme.
If they can reasonably hit at least some of those points, I think the film will do respectable box-office business. But I think that even if they hit all of them, despite the marketing campaign, it still won't be a "blockbuster". The subject matter is just a bit too obscure or esoteric for that to happen. But I do hope that if it's a good film, that it makes a profit, and a healthy one at that, because Tron is a rich world, full of potential stories to be told.
We should know pretty soon. The world premieres have happened, and reviews are starting to roll in. I'm avoiding all reviews until I see the film though, since I'm desperately trying to avoid spoilers. I spoiled The Empire Strikes Back for myself (of all movies...), and decided to never do that again.*
I'll admit I'm very excited about this movie. More than I've been for any film possibly since Star Trek: The Motion Picture. That's a long time. And we all know how that film turned out. I hope I'm not setting myself up for disappointment, but I'm also pretty well grounded in my opinion of the original Tron movie. I love that film, not because it's that great of a film, but because of what it meant to me at the time, and the nostalgia associated with it. If Tron: Legacy doesn't stomp all over my nostalgia and ends up being a fun ride, then I'll chalk it up as a win.
Anyway, I've got my ticket. Saturday, December 18th, 1:00 PM, at the Boeing IMAX theater in Seattle. I'm going with friends of mine who I'd seen the original Tron with, back-in-the-day, so the nostalgia factor will be in overdrive. (We couldn't get our schedules to align for opening day, which is why we're going Saturday.) If you're an AtariAger in Seattle and want to meet us there, PM me and maybe we can work something out.
And lastly, a few more Tron: Legacy items to whet your appetite...
An IGN interview with Olivia "Born to be" Wilde.
A nice behind-the-scenes look at the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUAyAXd39E0
And some B-roll footage of the L.A. premiere:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecrwbNRyz84
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovpTTy9C0Gc
* And since someone is bound to ask...
I was a huge Star Wars fan, and rabidly followed whatever news I could glean about The Empire Strikes Back in the years leading to its release, usually from the pages of Starlog magazine. At that time, at that age, it seemed like an eternity between films.
Finally, the week that the movie was going to open had arrived. I'd already made plans to see it on opening day with a couple of my best friends from high school.
On that Monday, my best friend Paul called me up, and simply said, "The book is out!" Fred Meyer (a local store) had it. I rushed over and bought it immediately, and read it cover-to-cover.
I instantly regretted it. I hoped by the time the movie came out later that week, maybe I'd have forgotten some of it.
Nope.
Everyone in the audience responded with shock and awe, excitement and surprise, just like they should have, except me. I knew what was coming. Sure, the visuals were still spectacular, and it was a great movie, but I already knew everything that was going to happen.
To this day, that's why Star Wars is my favorite film in the series, and not The Empire Strikes Back (like pretty-much everyone else). The movie just didn't have the impact on me that it should have. Lesson learned.
I just wish I'd learned it on something else. 
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