'Transformers One' Disappoints At Box Office With Soft $39M Global Debut

Beetlejuice 2' tops the weekend as 'Transformers One' becomes the latest example of Hollywood refusing to learn the lessons of 'A Star Wars' Story' and 'A Mad Max Saga.'

The kids showed up, but they (comparatively) chose Beetlejuice 2.

While rank generally does not matter (the raw gross and variables related to that gross are of crucial importance), it’s not a great look that the opening weekend of Hasbro and Paramount’s Transformers One came in just under the third weekend of Warner Bros. Discovery’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. The kids and families that were supposed to rally on Saturday and Sunday to pull young Optimus Prime and young Megatron out of the proverbial fire never showed. Instead, they showed up for Tim Burton’s buzzy and well-liked legacy sequel, which kept its hold as the all-quadrant event movie of the moment. Beetlejuice 2 earned another $26 million (-49%) to raise its 17-day domestic cume to $227 million. That’s a better third-weekend hold than It’s 50% drop on this weekend in 2017, by which time it had earned 81% of its $327.5 million domestic cume. If the Michael Keaton/Winona Ryder/Jenna Ortega sequel plays likewise, it’ll end just over/under the $281 million total of Dune Part Two. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice remains the all-quadrant event of the season.

When your well-liked $100 million follow-up is on a path to flirt with $300 million domestic, mediocre ($103 million thus far) overseas earnings are of less consequence. If Twisters ($268 million domestic and counting) cost $100 million instead of $155 million, its miserable $100 million overseas grosses would be mere trivia. Moreover, not that the world needs a Beetlejuice 3 (maybe this time the gang finally makes it to Hawaii), but a theoretical threequel could play like a conventional sequel (think Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Kingsman: The Golden Circle or Star Trek Into Darkness) that, with the franchise (re)introduced outside of North America, declines a bit stateside but upswings overseas for an over/under equal global cume. Ironically, if WBD’s own Joker: Folie à Deux underwhelms in two weeks (especially in terms of being an all things for all audiences tentpole like its predecessor), Beetlejuice 2 will remain the all-quadrant biggie until Sony’s Venom: The Last Dance on October 25.  

Transformers One opened 23x above Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.

As for Hasbro and Paramount’s Transformers One, a $25 million opening weekend isn’t awful by the lower standards of “from live-action movies to animated movies” pipeline. Paramount’s animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem opened with $26 million over the Fri-Sun part of a $45 million Wed-Sun debut. Recall that Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse opened with $35 million in mid-December 2018 amid rave reviews, Oscar buzz and the “see Miles Morales on the big screen” factor working in its favor. It had the holiday blitz to stretch those legs, becoming the leggiest comic book superhero movie since Tim Burton’s Batman. Conversely, WB’s Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (a feature-length installment of the acclaimed and popular Batman: The Animated Series) earned $557,134 on its Christmas Day 1993 opening day and would earn $1.1 million in its Sat/Sun debut and $5.6 million worldwide. I was there, and it was essentially a private showing. But this is still disappointing, both in terms of tracking and actual earnings.