Reject Report: $152 Million for Transformers
Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on July 8, 2007
Well, the story of the weekend— and the whole week, quite frankly— is Transformers and the carnage it unleashed at theaters throughout the United States. The Michael Bay action picture set several records: best Tuesday box office ever ($27.4 mil); best Independence Day performance ever ($27.9 mil); best Wednesday non-sequel performance ever; and now we are learning that this movie set the best seven-day non-sequel opening week ever at an estimated $152.5 million dollars.
The opening week non-sequel record beats Spider-Man at $151.6 million andThe Passion of the Christ at $144.4 million. Paramount has estimated it has Spidey beat by about a million, though I have read other reports that the final total could be even higher.
Here are the weekend box office numbers from Box Office Mojo.
| Release | Studio | Estimated Gross |
| Transformers | Paramount | $67,600,000 |
| Ratatouille | Disney / Pixar | $29,029,000 |
| Live Free or Die Hard | Fox | $17,400,000 |
| License to Wed | Warner Brothers | $10,400,000 |
| Evan Almighty | Universal | $8,114,000 |
| 1408 | MGM / Weinstein | $7,140,000 |
| Knocked Up | Universal | $5,159,000 |
| Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer | Fox | $4,150,000 |
| Sicko | Lionsgate | $3,650,000 |
| Ocean’s Thirteen | Warner Brothers | $3,525,000 |
Now here is a look at the Top Three’s total grosses, again from Box Office Mojo:
| Release | Studio | Total Gross |
| Transformers | Paramount | $152,500,000 |
| Ratatouille | Disney / Pixar | $109,546,000 |
| Live Free or Die Hard | Fox | $84,160,000 |
Having had a chance to digest the numbers a little more, I have to say now that there is, as they say, “more than meets the eye” to Transformers‘ numbers. As impressive as this week has been for them with records falling and so on, the chances of this movie getting up to Pirates 3, Spidey 3 and Shrek 3 territory do not look so bright today.
The problem is that while Transformers set a bunch of box-office records this week, they didn’t set any three-day records or weekend records. Sure, $152 million for the week is great, but it would have been even better if it was $152 million for three days. Transformers made only about $63 million for the first three days when it first came out, and only $67 mil on the weekend. These are not the kind of numbers that are going to get this movie to Number One for the year. The other problem is that the critics are really divided on this flick, and there is some very tough competition on the way in the form of Harry Potter and these other movies. This could well impact on the future box office and Transformers could well drop like a rock the same way that Fantastic Four 2 and so many other big Hollywood movies have done after a strong first week.
It looks to be a tall order for Transformers to get up to the box-office territory occupied by Spidey, Shrek and the Pirates this year. Spidey 3 has raked in 334 mil, Shrek 3 made $316 mil and Pirates 3 made $301 mil, but Pirates will make the most money worldwide. Bottom line is there is a real question as to whether Transformers has the legs to keep up with these kinds of numbers in the long run, but a $300 mil domestic performance seems at least achievable. People at Paramount have to be pleased.
As for the rest of the movies, many of them held up pretty well. The Michael Moore flick Sicko had an increased theater count (up over 700) which explains why it continues to do decent business. As for License to Wed, lurching in fourth place with a total take of $17.8 mil to this point, the less said the better.
I am going to make a very quick prediction for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which opens Wednesday. This is the fifth film version of the Harry Potter books. Basically, I expect it to do about the same business as Transformers did last week. There is a huge theater count estimated at over 4,100, so this picture should do big business for Warner Brothers. The only problem is that Harry Potter does not have the advantage of opening on a holiday weekend. There are also questions about whether people are sick of sequels and of Harry Potter movies in general. But this franchise is a money train and the tracking is said to be huge, at least as big as Transformers. So $150 million for the week is a good guess for how Harry Potter will do.
The one thing going for these movie franchises this coming week is the fact that it’s the All-Star Break! Harry Potter will be opening on a night where there is no baseball competition at all! So that is a great excuse for people to go to the movies.
Man, I am reporting on these box-office records as if I am following baseball. Happy All-Star break, box office fans.
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