Transformers One Has Lukewarm Box Office Weekend

The weekend gross for Transformers One was below expectations with a take of $25 million in the US and $14 million from 50 international box office markets (40% of total) for a total of $39M. Its not that impressive but I have a feeling that word of mouth and consistently excellent reviews (89% critic, 98% viewer) could create an Elemental situation. 

In that case the Pixar movie was released in June 2023 to a $29.6M box office and was written off as dead on arrival. However word of mouth kept the families coming and the end result was a worldwide total of $496M. Not amazing by Pixar standards but way more profitable than opening weekend suggested it would be. Other than The Wild Robot, the next month of family fair has little competition.

For the live action films, the target was a $1 billion worldwide box office but that was unrealistic then and especially now for an animated film in a franchise whose last animated film entry was 38 years ago. What marker would be considered a success for this film has not been revealed but the estimated cost of the film is $75 million. My guess is a success would be in the $300M plus range for worldwide grosses. 

It will be interesting to see if word of mouth gets Transformers One there. If Paramount has any brains, they will wait and give the film time and not throw it to video on demand in three weeks like so many other studios have been doing. Disney waited and it paid off in dividends both in the box office and later on with the VOD release two months later. Also studios repeatedly dumping to VOD is pre-programming their audiences to just wait. I have waited for plenty of films in the last few years I was on the fence about seeing and they unintentionally rewarded my wiliness to wait a month.