Other studios shied away from direct competition with the Transformers, and the result of The Last Knight’s poor showing is that after several strong weekends, the North American box office was off a whopping 40% from the same frame last year when Pixar’s Finding Dory debuted with $135 million.
Bay’s Transformers: The Last Knight debuted on Wednesday and has earned $69.1 million over its 5-day opening. Only one of the previous Transformers films, 2011’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon, debuted on Wednesday, and it earned $162.2 million (not adjusted for inflation) over its first five day. Even granting The Last Knight two extra days of showings, its debut still represents a 31% decline from the previous Transformers movie Age of Extinction’s 3-day total in 2014.
As far as North America is concerned the Transformers franchise appears to be on life support, a definite blow to Paramount, which has announced a slate of Transformers spin-off films (“Buzz for Bumblebee”), and which badly needs a hit, any kind of hit, in 2017. Certainly subsequent Transformers films will have to be made on a much less lavish scale—The Last Knight cost $213 million to produce and millions more to market.
Audiences for The Last Knight skewed heavily male (57%) with 51% over the age of 25. Viewers under 18 made up a healthy 29% of the crowd, and they liked the film more than older viewers, giving it an “A-“ CinemaScore, but older viewers brought the film’s rating down to an OK “B+” rating. With no major live-action blockbusters debuting until Spider-Man: Homecoming debuts on July 7, The Last Knight still has a window to improve upon its dismal debut, but the film’s lowly 15% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes won’t help.
Overseas the situation is quite different as The Last Knight earned $196.6 million this weekend, a total that includes $123.4 million in China, the biggest opening ever for a Transformers film in the Middle Kingdom. The film also scored franchise-high debuts in Turkey, Indonesia, and Ukraine, but there appears to be “franchise fatigue” in some of the bigger overseas markets, such as Russia, Korea, the U.K., and Germany where The Last Knight opened well behind 2014’s Age of Extinction.
Overseas sales have always been important in the modern Transformers films, growing from 55% of the worldwide total of Bay’s 2007 Transformers film, to 77.8% of the global haul of 2014’s Age of Extinction. China, where Age of Extinction made $320 million, is the market to watch. Unless The Last Knight can improve on that total, it doesn’t appear that Paramount can avoid taking major steps to reboot and scale down the Transformers franchise.
We will have to wait until tomorrow to determine whether Cars 3 or Wonder Woman will finish in second place this week. Pixar’s Cars 3 dropped 53.1%, a great hold for a big superhero film, but not for a Pixar feature. The acid test for Pixar’s weakest franchise will come next week with the debut of Illumination Entertainment’s Despicable Me 3. Cars 3 earned an estimated $25.2 million to bring its ten-day total to $99.9 million. A slow rollout overseas means we will have to wait months to find out how Cars 3 ends up, but given the franchise’s licensing potential it is unlikely that we have seen the last of these anthropomorphized autos.
There is no doubt about the success of Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, which dipped just 39% in its fourth weekend in theaters as it earned an estimated $25.2 million to bring its North America total to $318.4 million. Wonder Woman continues to close the gap on Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 ($380.2 million), and could easily end up as the number one superhero film of the summer. In short order Wonder Woman will top Batman v. Superman’s $330.4 million domestic total and become the third highest-grossing DC superhero film of all time, behind only The Dark Knight Rises ($434 million) and The Dark Knight ($534 million). Of course that stat is compiled without adjusting for inflation—Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman earned the equivalent of $557 million of today’s dollars, and Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman earned what amounts to $507 million today.
If there is any chink in Wonder Woman’s armor it is overseas where the film has earned $334.5 million, just 51.2% of its worldwide total, which is definitely on the light side for a major superhero film these days. With global take of $665 million so far, Wonder Woman is now the sixth highest global grossing DC Comics film (again not adjusting for inflation).
The low-budget aquatic survival film 47 Meters Down continues to impress, dropping just 33.6% as it earned $7.4 million to bring its North American total to $24.3 million. With this kind of success for a movie that was supposed to go direct to video look for more modestly-budgeted undersea thrillers in the future.
The Tupac Shakur biopic, All Eyez on Me surprised everyone with its third place finish last weekend, but this time around it posted one of the biggest drops of the summer season, plunging 77.9% to just $5.9 million, a swoon that was even deeper than that of the Tom Cruise-starring The Mummy, which tumbled 60% in its third weekend as it earned $5.8 million for a 17-day total of $68.5 million. Fortunately for Universal, which is launching its Dark Universe with The Mummy, the film is doing better overseas where it has earned $273.6 million, which accounts for 80% of its worldwide total.
Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales finished at #7 in its fifth weekend in theaters, earning $5.2 million to bring its domestic total to a respectable $160 million. With a worldwide gross sure to finish over $700 million, Dead Men Tell No Tales has the appearance of success, but the film’s mammoth $230 million production cost means that it might not turn out to be any more profitable than The Mummy, which was made for a more reasonable $125 million.
Sony’s R-rated comedy Rough Night, which stars “Scarjo” and Kate MacKinnon posted a decent hold (down 41.3%). Unfortunately its debut was so weak that this $20 million production has earned just $16.6 million in 10 days, which means it will continue to struggle just to make the break-even point.
Superheroes took the final two spots in the top ten with Captain Underpants finishing at #9 with $4.3 million ($65.7 million domestic total), and James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol.2 spending its eighth weekend in theaters in the tenth spot. Vol.2 has now earned $380.2 million here in North America and $851.2 million worldwide.
Be sure to check back here next week. Edgar Wright’s critically acclaimed crime caper Baby Driver opens on Wednesday, while Universal’s Despicable Me 3 and Warner Bros. Will Ferrell/Amy Poehler comedy The House debut on Friday in order to make the most of what could be a five-day weekend for some lucky people since July 4, falls on the following Tuesday.