Box Office - 'Transformers' Rakes in $60 Million

The early returns for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen aren't quite astronomical or unprecedented, but they sure are big. The Michael Bay sequel made $60 million on Wednesday, the most ever for a mid-week opening, and the second highest opening day number ever, if the estimate holds. The $60 million, reported by Showbiz Daily, is about $7 million shy of The Dark Knight, but barely ahead of Spider-Man 3, and it factors in the $16 million the film has made from its midnight and pre-dawn screenings on Wednesday. The new Wednesday record is $15 million more than Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I wouldn't put too much stock in where this falls in relation to The Dark Knight, at least not yet. If it manages a five-day total over $180 million, then you could conceivably put this in the $400 million bracket, but there's not enough evidence at this point to suggest it. After all, Spider-Man 3 only made $336 million in the U.S. with almost identical opening numbers in terms of gross, per-screen average, and the number of screens. But there's no question that Bay's first salvo for Revenge of the Fallen was huge, and that no movie in the next ten months has any real shot of coming close to it. We'll continue to chart it as the weekend progresses. The number's a bit higher than I expected, maybe six or seven million more than I thought it would do on opening day. Could it balance out on Friday? Possibly. Or it could be just as big then and we'd really have something to talk about.

Comments

[Asana]

First week is first week and it was bound to rake in some decent cash. What will be telling is how big a drop it suffers in the next week and the week afterward. I think once Half Blood Prince arrives the following week the Transformers will have significantly fallen.

[Vince]

Actually "Transformers" is the only true big-budget blockbuster for another 2 weeks-Harry Potter doesn't open until the 18th I think.

Next week'll be tough though- going up against the new "Ice Age" movie (the last big family movie of the summer) and the surprise hit in waiting "Public Enemies"- those movies alone will take up nearly $90 million together I feel. "Transformers" will be lucky to get 2nd place next week.

[Get The Big Picture]

I think that's what Asana meant, but it is worth pointing out that this movie will get a two-week run. It's also worth pointing out that Public Enemies isn't very good, or at least, isn't as good as it needs to be to steal a any additional audience. Ice Age will do really well, considering. I don't know if they can collectively suck $90 million out our wallets next week, but at least $75 - $80 million.

Transformers should repeat. You figure it makes $90 million Friday to Sunday - just an estimate - and I'm not convinced Ice Age can do half of that amount next week. Maybe it can, or maybe it'll suffer the way Prince Caspian did when Disney thought it could transplant a hit to the summer. Either way, I think it has more to do with Transformers than its competition. We'll see how word of mouth is doing when the Friday numbers come in.