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After a critical mauling the likes of which is usually reserved for Uwe Boll, Michael Bay’s mega-budget sequel “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” opened to the second largest five day opening of all-time behind “The Dark Knight.” Is that surprising? Not really.
The original film is one of only two non-sequels in the last three years to make over $300 million at the box office and was the highest selling DVD of 2007, beating the much-higher profile third films in the “Spider-Man,” “Shrek” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchises. In short, for whatever reason, people loved that film and the two years that passed was short enough to strike while the iron was hot, but long enough to significantly improve effects and get bigger, badder robots on screen for longer.
$112 million for the three days and $201.2 million since opening Wednesday are the official estimates and that is astounding. Word of mouth could be absolutely poisonous and the film would still out-gross the original and collect over a half billion worldwide. This was the blockbuster that summer has been waiting for and it will take less than 10 days to pass “Up” as the highest grossing film of the year so far.
The only other new action came from “My Sister’s Keeper” at number five with $11.8 million. For a cancer drama, that’s a fine start, but a troubling amount of it came from Friday, indicating some kind of fanboy rush. Are there groupies for this book like there are for “Twilight?” Just couldn’t wait to see if they added a cancer-free twist at the end? Very odd.
Two films vying for one of the 65 Best Picture slots opened in limited release and one is a huge hit while the other is not. “Chéri” earned $400,000 from 76 screens, which is a mediocre start for a film like that. Miramax will have to expand but it won’t get very far and a sub-$3 million finish is not gonna turn any Academy heads. $145,000 from four screens is more like it and that was the result for Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker.” It’s too early to call it the first successful Iraq War picture but there’s a lot of room to grow from that figure.
Not much was left for the holdovers once “Transformers” hit the scene and it was especially slim pickings for “Year One,” which dropped a calamitous 70%. If ever there was a doubt that Michael Cera in a loincloth was totally unappealing, let there be none now.
Next week we get “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” and “Public Enemies,” each opening on Wednesday. Families rule on holiday weekends so I’m thinking $86 million for the five days for Ray Romano and company, while Johnny Depp should be able to get away with $46 million or so.
Between the Confederations Cup and Michael Jackson, this was a rushed post but feel free to have at the “Transformers” performance in the comments section below. Here are the weekend’s top domestic grossers, courtesy of Exhibitor Relations:
*An error in ERC’s chart has “Star Trek” at #2. The film was in fact at #8 for the weekend.
14 responses so far
1 6-28-2009 at 3:38 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
Even with Depp, isn’t 46 pushing it? I don’t feel like the film is tapping the right outlets for awareness, personally.
2 6-28-2009 at 3:46 pm
Chad Hartigan said...
That would be in line with other Michael Mann projects and I see no reason why this would undershoot for him.
3 6-28-2009 at 3:47 pm
Jordan Raup said...
Star Trek wasn’t number 2. It was number 8. and I have no faith in humanity after Transformers 2 made so much money.
4 6-28-2009 at 3:48 pm
Chad Hartigan said...
Indeed. Weird slip up in that chart.
5 6-28-2009 at 4:28 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
I was thinking three-day for some reason. Sorry.
And yeah, what’s up with the ERC chart?
6 6-28-2009 at 4:56 pm
Jonathan Spuij said...
Jordan, I hope our faith will be slightly restored with a 70% second weekend drop!
Oh and those Confed Cup matches today were excellent. Those two goals from Spain and SA were amazing!
7 6-28-2009 at 5:40 pm
evan said...
Just wanted to say that I really enjoy your “Sunday Cents” articles. Good reads.
Transformers opening this well also depresses the hell out of me, but I hope it drops like crazy next weekend and by some miracle Public Enemies makes it to #1. Fingers crossed.
8 6-28-2009 at 6:33 pm
PJ said...
Unfortunately the word of mouth, at least in my neck of the woods, is nothing close to being poisonous; it seems that people aren’t as averse to mindless explosions and the bastardisation of childhood memories as I would’ve thought.
9 6-28-2009 at 9:08 pm
James D. said...
While I waited to buy a ticket for the Brothers Bloom, everyone was buying to see Transformers, minus a few going to see the Hangover. Sad times, indeed.
10 6-28-2009 at 10:19 pm
Glenn said...
To be fair, a lot of people think “Transformers” is a legitimately good movie (including many critics) so audiences could be forgiven for going to see the sequel even if everyone says its terrible since critics can be fickle like that.
11 6-29-2009 at 1:09 am
Kyle said...
I watched Transformers 2, and at least I can take solace in the fact that I bought a ticket to UP going in.
12 6-29-2009 at 1:12 am
Jarron said...
@Kyle.
I along with 2 buddies did the same thing (we bought Hangover tickets though). The only ones who enjoyed it were the 10 and younger set from our showing. The adults around us were visibly shaking their heads and scratching their heads during the many awful comedy and parts of the movie.
13 6-29-2009 at 8:26 am
KBJr. said...
I figure I’m allowed one or two mindless, ridiculous, excessive films a year, so I plan to see the ‘Transformers’ sequel sometime this week (I really want to avoid the weekend rush)…and I’ll still have one more in store for the next 6 months.
I’m not ashamed to say that I was pleasantly surprised and loved the first film, it was truly popcorn fun. So odds are this is just as well going to be good for what it is. Of course, I went into the first movie with extremely low expectations…will the sequel be able to live up to my higher expectations now? We’ll see.
Seems this film could reach $400 million by the end of its run, now that’s mega-tron!
14 6-29-2009 at 11:56 am
Chad Hartigan said...
For anyone interested, here’s my review of the first Transformers and the reason why this new one will never get my $10.
http://chadhartigan.wordpress.com/2007/07/03/transformers/