It seems Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction really is more than meets the eye. Despite a critical panning (including our own ★ review), the fourth instalment of the Transformers franchise has taken a whopping $300 million worldwide in its opening weekend.
The film has beaten out Captain America: The Winter Soldier‘s opening weekend of $95 million by taking just over $100 million in North America after its release on Thursday. An impressive $10.7 million of that was taken from IMAX screenings. Internationally the film fared very well, especially in China where it opened to $90 million which was nearly as much as North America, despite being on far fewer screens. The film also performed well in Russia and Korea.
Transformers: Age of Extinction opens in the UK this Saturday (Paramount were waiting for the World Cup to calm down) and Japan in August where it is expected to knock Disney’s Frozen, now 16 weeks at number one, from its icy throne.
In other box office news, comedy sequel 22 Jump Street managed to hold on to second place with $15.4 million, giving it a domestic total of $139.8 and a global taking of $194 million. How to Train Your Dragon 2 also retained its third spot $13.1 million. Its domestic total of $121.8 million is around $12 million less that its predecessor at the same point.
Last week’s number one, Think Like a Man Too, drops to fourth with a pretty large 64% drop off taking $10.4 million. Like How to Train Your Dragon 2, the Kevin Hart sequel has taken less than its predecessor did in the same period of time.
Here’s the Top 10 and their domestic grosses…
|Position| | |Title| | |Studio| | |Weekend| | |Domestic Total| | |Week(s)| |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Transformers: Age of Extinction | Paramount | $100 million | $100 million | 1 |
2 | 22 Jump Street | Sony | $15.4 million | $139.8 million | 3 |
3 | How to Train Your Dragon 2 | Dreamworks | $13.1 million | $121.8 million | 3 |
4 | Think Like a Man Too | Sony | $10.4 million | $48.1 million | 2 |
5 | Maleficent | Disney | $8.2 million | $201.8 million | 5 |
6 | Jersey Boys | Warner Bros. | $7.6 million | $27.3 million | 2 |
7 | Edge of Tomorrow | Warner Bros. | $5.2 million | $84.1 million | 4 |
8 | The Fault in Our Stars | 20th Century Fox | $4.8 million | $109.5 million | 4 |
9 | X-Men: Days of Future Past | 20th Century Fox | $3.3 million | $223.4 million | 6 |
10 | Chef | Open Road Films | $1.6 million | $19.4 million | 8 |
What did you see over the weekend?