As noted by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, The Last Knight managed a #1 $69.1m U.S. domestic box office bow against no other new wide release competition this weekend. Its opening gross is below that of AOE and thus marks the lowest of the franchise.
The Last Knight, which Paramount says cost $217 million to make before a major marketing spend, is the latest summer sequel to spring an oil leak, at least in the U.S., coming in 31 percent behind Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014). And it is the first Transformers movie not to open to $100 million or more.
Now that we have the numbers, Variety goes further in offering potential reasons for the opening weekend decline from AOE to TLK.
Michael Bay’s latest seemed to lack a strong enough hook. That’s not to say there wasn’t an attempt. For example, Bay shot nearly the entire movie on Imax 3D cameras, which would seem to create a need to see the movie on the big screen. Also, a trailer for the movie showed Optimus Prime fighting Bumblebee, which sparked a question among fans: Why? But, in the end, the movie has failed to cut through the cultural conversation, or even seem different from the last installment in any significant way.
Find The Hollywood Reporter piece here, the Variety article here, then join the discussion on the 2005 boards!
Ash from Carolina
Part of it is Paramount is just one part of the larger company Viacom so the parent company can move some things around on the books to keep the studio afloat. Although with the TV side of Viacom not looking good either you have to wonder how long Viacom will have reserves for Paramount to keep making so many bad choices.
Theatrical run of the movies is also just one part of the revenue stream for movie studios. For years after the box office run they can farm out their popular movies to cable, streaming, broadcast, or anyone wanting to show one of their movies. You also have the home release which brings in money as people replace DVDs with Blu-Rays or Blu-Rays with 4K or a box set makes people buy the movies they already own just for the set.
But yea Paramount can't keep having abysmal years like this one year after year and still keep the lights on. Bad part is I don't know if anyone at Paramount really understands how to make a big movie with domestic appeal.
Ephland
They weren't formed this year?
AshleyCuadra
You guys forgot that paramount pictures has been around for years
96megatron
Unicron: I will make my Blockbuster Debut Dang Nabbitt.
Autobot Burnout
Bank loans probably.
Dmhead
Why is Paramount still alive? With all these flops in this year, they should have gone bankrupt by now. What is keeping them up?
Dragonclaw
Well…Box Office Mojo is no longer tracking TLK.
Dragonclaw
I wouldn't say the combined universe will be impossible, but I do think it will take some re-imagining to get it started up in earnest. Becoming more kid friendly would likely be a good start to get parents back.
Ash from Carolina
Add to that The Last Knight was supposed to the start of some sort of cinematic universe so they could be just like Marvel/Disney. It's going to be really hard to spin any sort of expanded universe off if so many people skipped over the launch of the expanded universe. Spinning a big budget universe off when you are at the top of the box office isn't easy. When your movies isn't going to be in the top 20 domestically and will not be in the top 10 world wide it seems like their dreams for the Transformers universe are now impossible.
Dragonclaw
Yeah, but the studio gets a far smaller cut of the foreign box office than domestic so the fact that only 21% of that 600 mil is domestic take has to be killing Paramount execs, especially since they really needed it to be a home run since they already flopped with ALL their next biggest grossing movies – Baywatch, XXX, and Ghost in the Shell.
Man, it was almost beaten yesterday by a movie that was only in 20 theaters…TF5 is in more than 10 times that many screens still (224)…scratch that, it was almost beaten MONDAY…it WAS beaten yesterday…
APB
Eyy it crossed 600M!
uruseiranma
Yeah, I think if it ends up making less than the first one worldwide, Paramount will 'not be so kind.'
And yeah, given the last two outings brought in at least a billion worldwide, to end with the numbers this low, probably is making some people squirm.
I do feel there may have been some in Paramount who felt the franchise was bulletproof, much in the same way some at Warner Brothers felt about the Batman series in the 90's. Of course, just because something has a 'big name' on it, doesn't mean it's going to just rake in the cash…some people have their limits.
Gordon_4
Still needs a cool $100million+ to equal TF07. This is a disappointing performance.
pie125
View attachment 27789885
G1DeadEnd
It's on the West Coast, Washington State.
They are playing it in a "cheaper" theatre, which always gets movies, after their main run in the multiplexes, so a film, that is no longer in most cinemas, stay another month or two in this cheaper venue. It's not super duper nice, but it's not terrible either.
Ephland
Given the low box office take of this film across the world, "because it sucks ass" can be considered a logical answer.
Angry Camaro
I was looking for more of a logical answer and not an opinionated answer
Ephland
Because it sucked complete ass.
Angry Camaro
Where is this? I've got nothing on the east coast of the US.
G1DeadEnd
I was wrong. After checking again today, the movie has one showing today at 3:45 (probably, because it's Friday).
I'm tempted to go, but don't know if I want to endure the eye-roll of my wife. It will have been my 7th time seeing it.