The Problem With Box Office Analysis! Actors Don’t Sell Tickets!
Modern day box office analysis is weird, unfocused, and many people do not understand the basic ideas of box office analysis. Here’s the big issue with box office analysis and why so many people get it wrong.
What’s The Issue?
So, the big issue with box office analysis are people blaming a movie bombing on an actor when that narrative is false. 2025 had two different examples of this that created a false narrative for why certain films bombed.
The first one was Sydney Sweeney and all of the controversies surrounding. She had three different movies come out last year and the two ones with the biggest narratives were Eden and Christy. Eden was a film that made the film festival circuit, it released in the middle of August and made $2 million. The film barely had a marketing budget so the film was dropped with little to no marketing. This was right after the American Eagle ad controversy, and people were blaming the film bombing on Sydney Sweeney. Which is such a stupid narrative because Eden is an ensemble where she’s like the fourth or fifth billed actor. The film also stars Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Bruhl, and was directed by Oscar winning director Ron Howard. But all of the articles that came out after this film was released, were saying “Sydney Sweeney’s latest film, Eden bombs at the box office.” Anybody with common sense, knows that is 100% false. It’s not like Eden was a big flashy $200 million blockbuster with a bunch of trailers and the full press tour. No, Eden is quite the opposite of that, it’s a small indie film. And then a similar narrative happened with Christy, which is a little bit different because Sweeney is the star of Christy. But, once again, the film didn’t have a big marketing campaign and it didn’t get a super big theatrical release. Also, the film is about a female boxer. How many movies about female boxers have been box office hits? Million Dollar Baby and I think that’s it. The fact that people were blaming the Sydney Sweeney controversy on those films bombing is ridiculous because it’s not true. It was tackling subject matter that’s not super interesting and appealing to larger audiences.
The other one involved Jared Leto with Tron: Ares. This is another similar example of an actor being blamed for a movie’s poor box office numbers when it makes absolutely zero sense. Tron has never been a popular franchise in the way that Star Wars or Harry Potter are. Across three films, the films have grossed a total of $569 million. Which is averaging about $189 million per film. The fact that Tron: Ares is one of the biggest box office bombs isn’t too surprising because I don’t know how many people were thinking this was going to be a massive hit. I know that people don’t like Jared Leto because of all of the reports that have come out and him just feeling like a very weird guy. If you don’t like Jared Leto as a person, that’s fine but to blame him for Tron: Ares bombing is ridiculous. The whole narrative surrounding Jared Leto has been very strange ever since Suicide Squad came out and people hated his portrayal of Joker. Tron: Ares was never going to be a $500 million film, I figured it was going to gross between $200-$300 million and it did about $160 million. If you were to swap Jared Leto and put in any number of our Hollywood Chrises, Evans, Hemsworth, Pine or Pratt I don’t know if the movie’s box office would’ve changed.
Why Are Certain Actors Blamed for Box Office Bombs?
With those two examples being out of the way, what is the commonality between Sydney Sweeney and Jared Leto? Both of them have been involved with major controversies that have hurt how people view them. Whenever that happens, they become the target and both of them become the target for poor box office analysis. If you don’t like Sydney Sweeney because of the American Eagle controversy, her political views, or whatever or Jared Leto because of his weird behavior, that’s fine. But using common sense, we all know those aren’t the reasons why their 2025 films bombed. In order for a movie to print money, it needs to get both the cinefiles to show up as well as normal audiences. Now, us on the internet know about Jared Leto’s “method acting” on the set of Suicide Squad and gifting Will Smith anal needs and used condoms. But do the average joes know that? My mom doesn’t know about Jared Leto’s weird behavior, so therefore the reason why she didn’t go see Tron: Ares was because she wasn’t interested. You can apply that logic to almost every single one of Leto and Sweeney’s 2025 films, average joes didn’t show up for their films because of a lack of marketing, lack of interest in the film’s subject matter, or bad buzz. Tron: Ares didn’t get great reviews, it currently holds a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes. Which isn’t a dreadful score, but when the reviews are saying “it’s fine” that doesn’t make people go “I want to go and see it now.”
What’s frustrating about this is that you have other actors that star in box office bombs that don’t get blamed for it. An example of this last year was The Running Man with Glen Powell. This movie came out about a month after Tron: Ares and a week after Christy came out. The Running Man was another one of 2025’s biggest box office bombs and none of the headlines, whether it’s from Instagram accounts or the major trades, blamed that film bombing on Glen Powell. Why? Because people like Glen Powell and he hasn’t been involved with any big controversies that make people dislike Powell.
It’s all so frustrating because it’s spreading a false narrative about what’s going on and it’s bad journalism. Nobody with common sense is blaming Tron: Ares bombing on Jared Leto’s weird behavior or Christy one the Sydney Sweeney controversies. It’s common sense that people need to use and the lack of it is very bad and concerning for the future.
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