Transformers: The Last Knight, the fifth installment in the blockbuster franchise from Michael Bay, may have topped the weekend, but all that robot-smashing has gotten a bit rusty at the box office.
The Paramount film, which opened on Wednesday, took in $45 million (Dh165 million) in the US and Canada over the weekend, placing it in the No. 1 spot ahead of returning titles Cars 3 and Wonder Woman. When factored into its five-day debut, The Last Knight grossed a franchise low of $69 million.
That’s just slightly below expectations and well behind its predecessor, Transformers: Age of Extinction, which opened with $100 million over three days in 2014 — making The Last Knight the first movie in the franchise not to open to $100 million or more.
The visual effects-heavy blockbuster, which has never been a favorite of critics, played in 4,069 locations in the US and Canada. It earned a B-plus CinemaScore with audience members — of which 51 per cent were over age 25 and 57 per cent were male.
The latest installment, which stars Mark Wahlberg and Anthony Hopkins and features a new mythology involving King Arthur and Stonehenge, cost $217 million to make. Still, however squeaky The Last Knight’s debut may have been domestically, the picture took in an Optimus Prime-sized number overseas. It earned $196 million from its first 40 markets — with $123 million of that haul coming from China.
“In the end, it’s a movie that’s created for a global audience,” said Megan Colligan, president of worldwide distribution and marketing for Paramount Pictures, when asked about the franchise’s domestic box-office slowdown. “We make these movies for a global audience; it was received well by a global audience. We’re feeling really good about it.”
Colligan also dismissed talk of franchise fatigue.
“Two trends everybody is talking about,” she said, “are the reception of sequels and the impact of Rotten Tomatoes. Both have an impact, I think. Sequels can work. People care a lot about these characters, but there’s a cynicism in the US marketplace about these movies, and I do think people look to aggregators to decide if they should be giving these movies a shot.”
Despite its low opening, The Last Knight’s hulking metal did help fend off its returning competitors.
Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot, took in an additional $25 million over the weekend, pushing the Warner Bros. film well past the $300 million mark in its fourth week in theatres. On the global scale, the movie’s gross is just more than $652 million.
Meanwhile, Cars 3 fell to third place in its second weekend, grossing $25 million — down 53 per cent from its debut, which also marked a franchise low. The Disney/Pixar picture is just shy of crossing the $100 million mark.
Elsewhere, shark flick 47 Meters Down took in $7.4 million, helping it place fourth for the weekend, while the Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me and the Tom Cruise-led The Mummy were neck and neck for the fifth spot with $5.8 million each.
