Has Jared Leto single-handedly killed the hype for ‘Tron: Ares’?
How easy is it to separate the artist from the art? Sometimes it’s certainly possible, millions of people still like Michael Jackson’s music despite his… troubling behaviour. And Woody Allen still made movies starring lots of celebrity pals even though he has been essentially indefensible for nigh-on 40 years. But Jared Leto… that might be another question.
Whereas the likes of Alec Baldwin are known for being bellends but still put out great films, Leto has a worrying and troublesome propensity to act like Jesus, starting off in a jokey way, but then embracing it more and more to the point it just becomes disturbing.
Up until now movies studios have trusted that his army of dwindling female fans left over from the days of teen angst hit My So Called Life will buy enough movie tickets to make it worth putting Leto in the lead role, but then came Morbius for example, a Marvel movie that cost tens of millions to make but was widely panned, with Leto winning a Golden Raspberry for Worst Actor and a nomination for Worst Film.
This, of course, followed Leto’s annoying method acting as The Joker in James Gunn’s Suicide Squad, doing hilarious on-set ‘pranks’ like reportedly gifting other actors rats, used condoms and sex toys. Brilliant.
Then Disney announced that he would be leading the long-awaited third movie in the Tron franchise, Tron: Ares. This was definitely a gamble, because among sci-fi fans this was a movie some ten years in the making that would be a must-see at the cinema, together with a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, an enormous budget and some dazzling visual effects.
But Leto is a divisive character to say the least, especially when you look at the controversy surrounding his ‘cult’ – essentially a fan group for his band 30 Seconds from Mars that pre-Covid were organising trips to Croatia, where bafflingly tens of women would follow Leto around looking at him adoringly while he strolled about the place with a long beard in flowing white robes.
Add that to the accusations made against him by nine women and it doesn’t add up to a good look at all – in fact it’s probably enough to completely derail the hype about Tron: Ares, which you can’t help but think would be far more talked about than it is with a different leading actor in place.
That hasn’t stopped studio execs sticking with Leto for the new Masters of the Universe live action movie however, with Leto due to play Skeletor, who is only marginally less frightening than the idea of having to go to somewhere called Mars Island to walk around after Jared Leto throwing flowers at his feet or something.
It remains to be seen how well Tron: Ares does at the box office when it gets a full release at the end of this week but it has a definite ‘straight to streaming’ air about it, with initial reports saying that while the special effects are indeed special, the rest of it is distinctly ‘meh’.
Aside from going up against He-Man, Leto is also signed on to star in Lunik Heist with Lupita Nyong’o, the true story of America’s plot to steal a Russian spacecraft during a 1959 expo.
