Whoops, Jared Leto killed the ‘Tron’ franchise

Hey, Popculturology friends. After a week off, I’m back with the Friday edition of the newsletter. I spent last weekend in California, making a stop at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles where I got to check out Jaws: The Exhibition and saw a bunch of costumes and props from Star Wars and Marvel movies.

Any of my Rochester readers going to the Tree House Brewing pop-up this weekend? I’m buying what Will Cleveland, my former Democrat and Chronicle colleague, is selling when it comes to speculating that the Massachusetts brewery might be eyeing an expansion in Rochester ...

“I blasted through a fucking chair”

This past Sunday was a big night for Tim Robinson fans, with The Chair Company premiering on HBO. If you’re a fan of his existing body of work — I Think You Should Leave, Friendship, Detroiters — you’ll feel right at home with this new show.

Robinson has turned “a man becomes undone thanks to an obsession with a tiny flaw or slight” into an art form, and The Chair Company wastes no time setting Robinson’s Ron Trosper into his own downward spiral after the character’s chair falls apart in what should have been a moment of professional triumph.

Many of the bits in The Chair Company — Ron getting into an argument with a waitress over whether or not she’s been to a mall, for example — could easily have been seeds for sketches on ITYSL, but they work in the premiere of The Chair Company, laying the groundwork for yet another Robinsonesque character ready to snap.

BOOK NOOK

Here’s what I’ve been reading the past two weeks …

• One of Us (Dan Chaon)
• First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens (Becky Ferreira)
• Hole in the Sky (Daniel H. Wilson)
• Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (Cory Doctorow)

NEWS, NOTES & TRAILERS

Why did Disney make a Tron movie that wasn’t for Tron fans?

I tried to warn Disney that Tron: Legacy deserved better than a sequel starring Jared Leto, but they didn’t listen to me.

Instead, Tron: Ares debuted with a disappointing $33.2 million opening this past weekend. That’s less than the $44 million that Tron: Legacy opened with back in 2010. So now it appears that the Tron franchise is dead.

“No one asked for this reboot,” a source told The Hollywood Reporter. “If you say, ‘Tron: Ares is good, we just needed a different actor,’ you’re deluding yourself.”

OK, first off, Tron: Ares isn’t a reboot. It’s a sequel. And second, people were asking for a Tron: Legacy sequel! Fans of that film spent a decade hoping to see that story from that film, starring Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde, continued in another film. Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski even had Tron: Ascension in motion before Disney pulled the plug.

I just don’t buy that the Tron franchise was dead on arrival when it comes to the potential of a third film.