Elle Fanning and Jared Leto Lead Hollywood's Streaming Showdown

Max Sterling, 12/31/2025Hollywood’s jungle has gone digital: Predator stalks streaming with nerve, Tron races for a second wind, and legacy franchises are now fighting for survival in your living room—where nostalgia meets the next click, and only the boldest stories win.

Predator: Badlands comes in with scars and stories—the latest twist in a franchise evolution that’s less corporate bravado, more desperate improvisation. The film, directed by Dan Trachtenberg, did decently at the box office—$184.2 million worldwide. Perhaps not the sort of number to inspire spontaneous cartwheels on the Sony lot, but certainly enough to quiet the vultures for a moment. Rather than retreat into nostalgia, Trachtenberg decides to upend its formula: gone are the threw-muscle-at-the-problem marines; in their place, an oddly vulnerable Yautja named Dek, tossed onto a planet that makes Earth’s worst neighborhoods look inviting.

This time, the Predator hunts with nothing but a spineful of bad ideas. There are no running quips from an Arnold figure, no climate-defying handshakes, just Dek diverting and surviving as he’s stripped of his clan, gadgets, and—most alarming for some—a human foil. It’s a narrative sleight of hand: the hunted becomes the hunter, but in reverse, his adversary is the very world itself. Elle Fanning’s Thia throws in a dose of humanity (not literally; she’s just less pointy than everyone else), offering rare warmth in a setting that looks all teeth and thorns.

The franchise gamble paid off enough for digital numbers to matter—a $29.99 ticket to own, or a brisk $24.99 for a weekend's worth of streaming adrenaline. That’s the kind of pricing that would have made Blockbuster clerks blush, though, depending on whom you ask, it might still feel like a better deal than shelling out twice as much for stale popcorn and sticky stadium seats. Trachtenberg’s approach—turning the Predator’s strengths into his liabilities—walks the knife’s edge between inspired subversion and corporate risk mitigation. If nothing else, it’s a hat tip to creativity inside the franchise machine, even if the gears occasionally grind.

Meanwhile, Tron: Ares floats in on a different frequency—less like a conquering hero, more like a cult classic unsure of its place. The film’s journey to streaming isn’t exactly triumphant. After barely registering at the box office—the sort of release that earns words like “beleaguered” and “rapid-fire” in the trades—Disney hitched its hopes to streaming, with Ares arriving on Disney+ a day after Blu-ray. Maybe that’s a mercy, maybe it’s triage. The Tron saga always carried a certain ghost-in-the-machine reputation; Ares doesn’t so much rewrite the code as toggle the mood lighting.

There’s ambition here, or at least the suggestion of it: Jared Leto (playing mercifully against type, per early reviewers) embodies Ares, an AI sent stumbling into our world, trading in its sleek digital cocoon for real-life existential pratfalls. Greta Lee, with her signature edge, plays CEO Eve Kim, jolting some current into the faded circuitry of ENCOM. For a franchise whose emotional IQ has historically hovered somewhere near "programmable," Leto smuggles in something resembling sincerity, and even—on the rare occasion—a laugh. IMAX Enhanced might woo those who trade in pixel fidelity, but it can't mask the broader dilemma: does anyone care enough to log on?

The bigger story, though, floats just above the coding—two venerable properties lunging for relevance across the same digital field. Badlands eschews humans altogether, swinging for the creative fences, while Ares is a masterclass in nostalgia wrestling an unruly spreadsheet. Disney is already hinting that any future Tron runs might have to live and die on streaming, a sobering concession for fans holding out hope for some return to theatrical glory. Perhaps this is the era when streaming becomes not just the alternative to multiplexes, but the main event itself.

Zooming out, both films expose Hollywood’s not-so-secret dance with its own legacy. Studios remain tethered to the gravitational pull of established IPs, but can’t always agree on whether to rehash, reboot, or reinvent. No one in 2025 expects the multiplex to roar back to its Avengers-era heyday; the battleground now is your couch, your remote, and an algorithm poised to serve up whatever nostalgia or novelty you’re willing to pay for.

Oddly, there’s something hopeful in the chaos. Badlands, for all its franchise baggage, manages a risk. Tron: Ares, for its part, stumbles into vulnerability when a safer bet would be digital spectacle. Are these the sparks of a renaissance? Maybe, or maybe they're just the embers before another round of IP recycling.

As winter melts into spring, don’t be surprised if the next franchise resurrection slides quietly into the marketplace without fanfare. The old rules are gone; the game is different now. The only certainty? The fight for survival has left the triple-A theater behind, settling instead on a streaming landscape as unpredictable as it is crowded. Out there, the predators and programs chase relevance—and sometimes, against all odds, they actually catch it.

The first months of 2025 usher in a spectacle that feels both oddly inevitable and yet faintly surreal—a digital arena crammed with familiar faces, all jostling for dominance on your living room screen. Out of the streaming mist comes a tale of two franchises, both carrying the weight of their icons like well-worn jackets. Consider this Hollywood’s latest standoff: in one corner, a familiar extraterrestrial huntsman squares up for yet another round; Predator: Badlands lands on PVOD January 6th, swaggering with that bruised-but-unbroken energy. Blink, and the following day, Tron: Ares glides quietly onto Disney+, its neon veins pulsing, daring you to remember why you cared in the first place. A double bill, but not of the matinee variety. Is this a new chapter, or just another shuffle of the same digital playlist?Predator: Badlands comes in with scars and stories—the latest twist in a franchise evolution that’s less corporate bravado, more desperate improvisation. The film, directed by Dan Trachtenberg, did decently at the box office—$184.2 million worldwide. Perhaps not the sort of number to inspire spontaneous cartwheels on the Sony lot, but certainly enough to quiet the vultures for a moment. Rather than retreat into nostalgia, Trachtenberg decides to upend its formula: gone are the threw-muscle-at-the-problem marines; in their place, an oddly vulnerable Yautja named Dek, tossed onto a planet that makes Earth’s worst neighborhoods look inviting.This time, the Predator hunts with nothing but a spineful of bad ideas. There are no running quips from an Arnold figure, no climate-defying handshakes, just Dek diverting and surviving as he’s stripped of his clan, gadgets, and—most alarming for some—a human foil. It’s a narrative sleight of hand: the hunted becomes the hunter, but in reverse, his adversary is the very world itself. Elle Fanning’s Thia throws in a dose of humanity (not literally; she’s just less pointy than everyone else), offering rare warmth in a setting that looks all teeth and thorns.The franchise gamble paid off enough for digital numbers to matter—a $29.99 ticket to own, or a brisk $24.99 for a weekend's worth of streaming adrenaline. That’s the kind of pricing that would have made Blockbuster clerks blush, though, depending on whom you ask, it might still feel like a better deal than shelling out twice as much for stale popcorn and sticky stadium seats. Trachtenberg’s approach—turning the Predator’s strengths into his liabilities—walks the knife’s edge between inspired subversion and corporate risk mitigation. If nothing else, it’s a hat tip to creativity inside the franchise machine, even if the gears occasionally grind.Meanwhile, Tron: Ares floats in on a different frequency—less like a conquering hero, more like a cult classic unsure of its place. The film’s journey to streaming isn’t exactly triumphant. After barely registering at the box office—the sort of release that earns words like “beleaguered” and “rapid-fire” in the trades—Disney hitched its hopes to streaming, with Ares arriving on Disney+ a day after Blu-ray. Maybe that’s a mercy, maybe it’s triage. The Tron saga always carried a certain ghost-in-the-machine reputation; Ares doesn’t so much rewrite the code as toggle the mood lighting.There’s ambition here, or at least the suggestion of it: Jared Leto (playing mercifully against type, per early reviewers) embodies Ares, an AI sent stumbling into our world, trading in its sleek digital cocoon for real-life existential pratfalls. Greta Lee, with her signature edge, plays CEO Eve Kim, jolting some current into the faded circuitry of ENCOM. For a franchise whose emotional IQ has historically hovered somewhere near "programmable," Leto smuggles in something resembling sincerity, and even—on the rare occasion—a laugh. IMAX Enhanced might woo those who trade in pixel fidelity, but it can't mask the broader dilemma: does anyone care enough to log on?The bigger story, though, floats just above the coding—two venerable properties lunging for relevance across the same digital field. Badlands eschews humans altogether, swinging for the creative fences, while Ares is a masterclass in nostalgia wrestling an unruly spreadsheet. Disney is already hinting that any future Tron runs might have to live and die on streaming, a sobering concession for fans holding out hope for some return to theatrical glory. Perhaps this is the era when streaming becomes not just the alternative to multiplexes, but the main event itself.Zooming out, both films expose Hollywood’s not-so-secret dance with its own legacy. Studios remain tethered to the gravitational pull of established IPs, but can’t always agree on whether to rehash, reboot, or reinvent. No one in 2025 expects the multiplex to roar back to its Avengers-era heyday; the battleground now is your couch, your remote, and an algorithm poised to serve up whatever nostalgia or novelty you’re willing to pay for.Oddly, there’s something hopeful in the chaos. Badlands, for all its franchise baggage, manages a risk. Tron: Ares, for its part, stumbles into vulnerability when a safer bet would be digital spectacle. Are these the sparks of a renaissance? Maybe, or maybe they're just the embers before another round of IP recycling.As winter melts into spring, don’t be surprised if the next franchise resurrection slides quietly into the marketplace without fanfare. The old rules are gone; the game is different now. The only certainty? The fight for survival has left the triple-A theater behind, settling instead on a streaming landscape as unpredictable as it is crowded. Out there, the predators and programs chase relevance—and sometimes, against all odds, they actually catch it.