So Bee is in third place, Mary Poppins just made 21 or 22 Million while Bee made 21 million. That isn't surprising. Bee and Mary will make more money in the weeks to come, even Bee since it's getting good word of mouth.

 

Well... it sure lives up to expectations

 

It's a reboot. It's literally incompatible with the Bay movies in every way.

Not that the Bay movies were wholly compatible with each other, but still, it rather flagrantly throws all of the Bayverse plot out the window, only having the most superficial resemblance to TF1. Sector Seven is there, but it's entirely different. Bumblebee looks kinda like his movie self, but is an entirely different character. All the TFs look and sound different, their backstory is completely devoid of Allspark this or human meddling that. This is conclusively the start of the Transformers' history with humanity.

Even though it opens on Cybertron and the entire plot is about a Transformer?

Boy you sure are salty someone did it right when Bay couldn't.

 

the twins

 

or you know Transformers bonding with humans, just like

G1
Armada, Energon, Cybertron, Robots in Disguise
Animated
Prime
Robots in Disguise
Rescue Bots
Various Comics at Times

You know, like almost the entire history of Transformers.

 

Everything you’re talking about all happens in like 10 minutes and less to introduce her as a character. You’re pretty delusional aren’t you.

 

With these numbers they might re-hire Bay...

 

Estimated Weekend Box Office Top 7 for Dec. 21 - Dec. 23, 2018
1. #Aquaman - $67.40M
2. #MaryPoppinsReturns - $22.24M
3. #BumblebeeMovie - $21.00M
4. Spider-Man: Into the #SpiderVerse - $16.70M
5. #TheMule - $9.31M
6. #TheGrinch - $8.18M
7. #SecondAct - $6.50M

Poppins is barely beating Bumblebee right now. On the other hand, Aquaman is performing lower than previous estimates as now we know it was front-loaded by fans, however, it is still doing better than Poppins and Bumblebee. Granted, these are not the complete Sunday numbers but rather, they are estimates. The second week needs to be strong for Bumblebee to beat Disney.

Bumblebee grossed an estimated $31.1M internationally this weekend. Global total stands at $52.1M. This is pretty good, in fact, even better than domestic, as the only large markets it has debuted in are Mexico, Germany, Australia, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia. We still have large markets who historically like Transformers like UK, China, South Korea, France, Spain, Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan to go. They are tracking very close to TLK numbers, and considering Bumblebee's budget is much smaller than TLK, this is good so far.

Source: BoxOfficeReport.com on Twitter, BoxOfficeReport.com on Twitter

 

Having seen the movie last night I can say that it is a fun and entertaining movie and Momoa makes Aquaman into a fucking badass who is more interesting than their batman or their superman. The movie is a little nuts and a little cheesy but a lot of fun. Which is exactly what I'd say about Bumblebee actually. My honest review is everyone should see both. I'm a little biased towards Transformers but the general audience is the opposite at this point. It's hard to compete with a superhero these days.

Exactly. If Transformers had been a better written and better directed franchise from the start it could have kept up the momentum and we would have a Transformers cinematic universe just like the MCU.

It genuinely confuses me as to why anyone cares so much at this point. If you've seen the movie it's obvious this is a soft reboot. It's not a debate.

I agree. Are Chinese audiences really that shallow? They loved aoe and tlk which to me are by far the worst of all the movies. If you throw in big fights and some chinese product placement does that really make them care all of a sudden? Everything Chinese in aoe was so shoehorned in to the point of being insulting and a little disgusting to me that I can't imagine it actually won over Chinese audiences...

These numbers are really bad tho. Fucking Mary Poppins? Giving us fans what we wanted made for a better movie, but the numbers aren't showing that at all. They're gonna re-hire Bay at this rate. Or maybe the next movie will be set entirely in China with the transformers speaking Chinese? Maybe it leaned too heavily on 80s nostalgia for some people. I could see that. Not everyone loved the 80s. But regardless it was a good starting point for a new direction and I really really hope it continues on.

 

The biggest problem of the Bee movie is that it frankly has no fish hook to grab a new audience. It doesn't appeal to fanatics for hollywoodian carnage and destruction, it has no hook for the wide public because fancy CGI robots was only new 10 years ago, it has no hook for young women because they're more interested in seeing Jason Momoa play up his charm than a B-list celebrity with John Cena, it has no hook for kids because they're busier watchig fortnite dances nowadays and probably don't even know about Bumblebee since the three last cartoons aired in timeslots and channels nobody saw.

It feels like it really only has appeal to nerds that want to see 80s Transformers references and Facebook geeks that want to pretend they care about 80s Transformers. Being a competent film isn't how you attract an audience, it's how you build one. Bumblebee would only attract people thru it's inherent quality if it was FANTASTIC instead of competent. Right now? It's doomed to playing third fiddle in a clash of films where the competition has better star power and better advertising.

 

It's actually doing right in line with TLK if we consider that TLK opening weekend was an accumulation of 2 extra days and Bumblebee's much lower budget. Hell, I would say Bumblebee has a better chance of making a profit than TLK when we consider there is not a lot opening the next few weeks and the global numbers are looking good.

 

They're not going to re-hire Bay. The guy is rich and old and wants to spend his money on his passion projects now before he turns 60 and loses his energy.You have nothing to worry about in that front.

 

The last 4 Bay movies made a steep mountain of public disinterest to climb.

If it does bomb, then it will join the ranks of the 1986 TF movie as the best one, but the worst performing.

 

I think you have some very good points. Everyone going apeshit over the G1 designs and saying stuff like "now we can have a whole movie on cybertron just like we've always wanted! This movie proves that G1 is what they should have done!" don't understand how the general movie going public works. In my opinion Bumblebee is the movie we should have gotten after dotm. The audience was there, the fatigue hadn't completely set in, dotm was a slight uptick in quality from rotf, and most of the interesting cons were killed off.

 

I loved it...better than they Bay movies and a likeable lead character with growth.

 

These days a lot comes down to the opening weekend box office in the minds of studio execs, which is why I'm worried. They've also said over and over that the future of the franchise is dependent on Bee's reception. If they just paid attention to reviews then we'd be good but money is way way more important to execs than reviews.

I sure hope not. It was a bit of a facetious comment but I'm sure it's crossed at least one studio executive's mind so far.

 

I think they know this time that this film will depend on having legs or else I don't think they would have opened this film alongside 2 major movies. The real test will be how this film holds up the next few weeks.

 

One odd thing that I've noticed is BOM is already adjusting Bumblebee up for ticket price inflation:

Transformers Movies at the Box Office - Box Office Mojo

How is this possible?

 

Not really, certainly not as bad as TF. Man of Steel and Wonder Woman were well liked by audiences (and I loved BvS UE but that's irrelevant). That's one more good movie than the Bayverse has to offer.

Aquaman has good acting, inventive inspired direction, spectacle, and is just fun. Perfect qualities for the Christmas season. Bumblebee has that too, but just not on a close to billion dollar scale like Aquaman probably will be.