The Transformers franchise lives on! The franchise’s latest installment Transformers: Rise of the Beasts revved its way to the domestic box office this weekend with a $60.5 million gross.
With this number, the long-awaited follow-up to 2018’s Bumblebee dethroned Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and replaced it at the top of the box office. Across the Spider-Verse is in its second weekend but it still managed $55.4 million to demonstrate strong staying power.
Rise of the Beasts won't be a true Transformers film if it achieved positive critical reviews. Apart from 2018’s Bumblebee, every other film in the franchise has only managed negative to mixed reviews – and Rise of the Beasts extends that tradition.
Speaking about the film, Chris Aronson, who heads Paramount’s domestic distribution arm said, "There’s a love for this franchise, that’s why there’s been as many films as there’s been. We’ve made a movie that was uber-satisfying for the audience."
Rise of the Beasts also topped the box office in international markets. Over the weekend, it attracted enough audience for an international gross of $110 million, which brings its total debut gross to $170.5 million.
Rise of the Beasts raked in the most money in China where it opened to $40 million, followed by $7.2 million in Mexico, $5.3 million in Indonesia, $5 million in Peru, and $4.4 million in Korea.
Even though the film was projected to make $50 million in China, Paramount executives will not be too disappointed since it overperformed expectations anyway. Deadline had projected the film will gross about $155 million worldwide.
Rise of the Beasts is the seventh installment in the Transformers franchise that began with Michael Bay’s 2007 film of the same name. It is still too early to call how the film will eventually fare but it is off to a spectacular start that will restore hope in the franchise.
The last mainline Transformers film, The Last Knight, performed way below expectations. The film’s box office gross was the lowest of the franchise at that point with $605 million. Even though that number would have made many films bona fide box office successes, it was not enough for The Last Knight to break even.
When you consider its production cost of about $260 million plus the marketing and distribution costs Paramount Pictures will have incurred, it's not hard to see how its $605 million gross wasn't enough.
Of course, Paramount stands to make a killing if Transformers and G.I. Joe crossover to create a unified cinematic universe. The ending of Rise of the Beasts seemed to hint at this happening.
