China Box Office Surpasses US for Transformers 4, Opens In India

It seems the cooperation deal with China is paying off for Paramount as the five day box office totals for Transformers: Age of Extinction in the country has surpassed the United States. As of Tuesday the film was at $134.5 million in China vs. $121 in the United States. This disparity is unlikely to last as I believe that foreign films in China can only stay in theaters for two or so weeks but it is still an impressive start that will only encourage more deals from the Hollywood studios. The expectation is Transformers 4 will become China's top grossing movie of all time, surpassing Avatar's $217.7 million (probably by end of weekend at current pace).

"The cooperation between CMMG and Paramount on TF4 is significant," Zhang Gen Ming, CEO and founder of CMMG, said in a statement. It marks CMMG’s first collaboration with a U.S. studio, Paramount Pictures.

"Paramount created the world’s top film while CMMG [brought] the full range of marketing services for TF4, which helped attract more Chinese audiences to come to the theaters. Because of the efforts of both Paramount and CMMG, TF4 will become the blockbuster with the biggest box office in mainland China this year and we couldn’t be more gratified," said Zhang.

Meanwhile the box office numbers from India this weekend are in Transformers 4 enjoyed the third-highest opening for a Hollywood film in the country (note that "Bollywood" films from India were excluded from that stat) with a $5 million take. The current record holder is Amazing Spider-Man 2 at $6.92 million followed by Amazing Spider-Man at $5.7 million.

As for the holiday weekend (that for box office totals more or less began on Wednesday), its no surprise that the movie is already on track to take the weekend with a $7.7 million day for a new total of $128.7 million, easily stomping the various other new movies out this weekend. I have not read any estimates for the second weekend of release but even with a usual more or less 50% drop off for the 2nd weekend of release, probably still looking at around $70 million or so for the five day holiday period in the States.