The franchise’s sixth film has a lot of audience overlap with the well-received animated ”Spider-Man“ sequel
The No. 1 position at this weekend’s box office is up for grabs. While Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is stomping into theaters hoping to reclaim some of its franchise’s former box office glory, the top spot could be swiped by Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” which is showing excellent midweek returns and could have long legs at the box office.
This is the first time in six years that a “Transformers” movie has graced the summer slate. Once upon a time, Michael Bay’s “Transformers” was the top franchise at the box office, sporting a lifetime total of $4.8 billion worldwide and a pair of billion-dollar hits with “Dark of the Moon” in 2011 and “Age of Extinction” in 2014.
But in 2017, the series’ fifth installment, “Transformers: The Last Knight,” opened on a Wednesday to a series-low $44.6 million over three days and $68 million over five days, going on to gross $602.8 million worldwide. While it still turned a slight theatrical profit against its reported $217 million budget, “The Last Knight” plummeted more than 45% from the $1.1 billion that “Age of Extinction” earned three years prior.
The following year, with Bay departing the franchise, Paramount released a holiday spinoff, “Bumblebee,” that was the first “Transformers” film to get widespread praise from critics. But that wasn’t enough to bring moviegoers back to heyday levels, and while “Bumblebee” turned a profit thanks to a tighter $102 million budget, it made less than “The Last Knight” with $465 million worldwide.
Which brings us to “Rise of the Beasts,” which sees “Creed II” filmmaker Steven Caple Jr. take over the director’s chair in a film that introduces the Maximals — led by the Ron Perlman-voiced Optimus Primal — in a film set more than a decade before the first “Transformers” movie released in 2007. Tracking currently has “Rise of the Beasts” opening just slightly better than the Fri.-Sun. total of “The Last Knight” in the low $50 million range.
The challenge for “Transformers 6” will be to avoid the disappointing fate of Paramount’s recent release “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” which got great critical and audience reception but got squeezed out by the juggernaut that was “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” In a similar way, “Rise of the Beasts” is releasing between “Across the Spider-Verse” and Warner Bros.’ “The Flash,” two films that are also courting the 18-35 male demographic.
This past weekend, “Across the Spider-Verse” earned a Sony Animation record $120.6 million opening weekend, and has added $28 million to its domestic total on Monday and Tuesday to outperform the first five days of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” by 7%. Opening weekend data from PostTrak showed that the “Spider-Verse” was 63% male and 61% 18-35.
Current tracking has “Spider-Verse” earning a second weekend in the same low $50 million range as “Transformers 6.” While it won’t have the help of premium formats in its second weekend, it wouldn’t be surprising to see “Spider-Verse” top that range and keep legging out among both general audiences and families given its very strong word of mouth.
This could especially be a problem for “Rise of the Beasts” given that even the most globally successful Hollywood franchises have seen their box office fortunes in China decrease due to a recent decline in interest in Western fare from that country’s moviegoers.
“The Last Knight” earned $228 million in China in 2017, and that market went a long way to keeping that film out of the red. Sources told TheWrap that “Rise of the Beasts” is earning solid presales in China for a Hollywood film in 2023, but it is unlikely to match “The Last Knight” in that market, meaning that it must find a better foothold in the U.S. and other international markets in order to turn a profit against its reported $200 million budget and against tough tentpole competition.
