Transformers: Age Of Extinction Falls Short Of $100 Million Weekend But Kills Globally

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

Transformers_Age_of_Extinction_41961Going into this past weekend, the most positive conversation surrounding Michael Bay’s latest cinematic explosium Transformers: Age of Extinction surrounded its chances of becoming the first film in 2014 to earn $100 million in its first weekend out. And while I was in full belief/disbelief that it would happen, early reports are showing that, no, Optimus Prime and his bot brethren only managed to take in the still ridiculously impressive sum of $97.5 million, give or take. But anyone crying over that small bit of spilled milk can afford to buy enough milk for a lifetime with the $201+ million that the film has earned internationally.

Transformers movies are always expected to do extremely well, even when they’re dumb as robot balls, and it would take an extreme pessimist to call this fourth entry a box office floptimus prime in any way. However, it did come up short as compared to both Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($97.8 million) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($108.9 million), though it trampled the first film’s opening weekend of $70.5 million. That’s a little more disappointing for Paramount when you consider just how many IMAX and 3D screens this flick made it to.

Even more surprisingly, Transformers: Age of Extinction completely took over China, which played a big part in the third (or fifteenth) act of the film, as well as the production. It has already earned over $90 million there, making it perhaps the biggest foreign film opening ever, and this marks the only time in history that a film has opened to $90+ million in two territories at once. Maybe U.S. audiences would have brought in that extra $3 million if our posters had been as cool as China’s.

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While Transformers: Age of Extinction is currently holding a “rotten as fu-huck” 17% average on Rotten Tomatoes, there is still a strong fanbase knocking back the naysayers by defending…something. Bay himself has come out and responded to the rampant amount of hate surrounding this bloated 167-minute CGI fest, saying, “Let them hate…They’re still going to see the movie!” Wise words. Watch him saying more in the clip below.

Much like people just can’t stop smoking, drinking and doing other things that are absolutely terrible for them, we also can’t stop watching Michael Bay movies, so I guess we’re lucky that he was so polite about it all.

We can almost definitely expect to find a Transformers 5: Edge of Dawns Past hitting theaters in 2016 or 2017, depending on what Bay wants to make a mint on next. I can’t be the only person hoping for a Transformers/Bad Boys mash-up sequel, right? Mike Lowrey and Bumblebee, kicking it old school? No?