Yup! And yeah, I’m not sure why paramount didn’t emphasize “FROM DIRECTOR STEVEN CAPLE JR” in all the marketing. Even though he’s not a big name (yet) it would’ve helped tell the general audience that this one isn’t another Bay movie. Hell, some people still think the bumblebee movie was directed by Bay.

 

Didn't tell him Michael Bay helped direct, did you? He was on set to help with the final battle stuff but I'd be interested to know you're friend's reaction to that bit of info all the same...or that this 'different guy' straight up said this film is effectively trying to be canon with the Bayverse by not stepping on its continuity.

That, and GOTG3 survived on extremely good WOM. If ROTB doesn't, which is very possible if the whole film is as poorly written as the Prime vs Primal clip suggests, then the movie is going to burn.

 

No cause he didn't co direct it, he's one of many associate producers.

Just like he was with Bumblebee.

Bay helped out when Caple asked but had no more direct intervention than he did with Bumblebee cause he was mostly focusing on ambulance during most of ROTB's production. He came by on set after that film was done but has mostly helped with effects and to support Caple.

Just like he did with Knight in Bumblebee

 

It came in lower than its projections but because of good word of mouth its having solid holds at the box office.
Still a 118 milion domestic opening for ROTB would be great.
My personal predictions are
70-100 milion domestic opening
80-110 milion opening in china
150+ opening in the rest of the international box office

 

He mostly consulted and helped Caple in terms of vfx since you knows, its the guys first big blockbuster movie.
Bay and Lorenzo didn't hijack the movie or whatever other tin foil hat theory you got.

 

Bay, no.

Lorenzo...well, you know the drill about him by now.

 

Let's hope people are smarter than this movie for our sake.

 

And what if the movie has zero Bayverse connections. For what is Lorenzo going to be blmed for ?

 

But Autobot Burnout! The first movies did so well! And AOE broke 1 billion dollars! Surely Lorenzo can do it again with ROTB, er...the animated film!

This might come off as a little insensitive, but Hasbro and Paramount's relationship remind me of the...how should I say it...abusive variety of relationships. Hasbro has received nothing of true value from the relationship for years at this point. All good relationships are a give and take. Paramount just takes. How many Transformers and G.I. Joe movies got delayed again? How many times did that mess with toy production? How many times was Hasbro caught with their pants down when movie designs changed and they no longer matched the toys? How many times did Paramount attract the ire of fans and Hasbro got blamed for it?

Hasbro has been at the mercy of Paramount for almost 20 years (they started making the first one in 2005, right?). I know that they won't leave Paramount any time soon. I loved the Bayverse too Hasbro, but it's time to move on.

All that said, I have no idea where they would go at this point. Disney? WB? LOL.

Uh...he's the main producer. Or at least, the most infamous (aside from Bay). They are usually held responsible if a movie fails or succeeds. If it fails, the blame is squarely on his shoulders as well as the other producers.

EDIT: Thanks to the mod that merged my posts!

 

I can't help but find it hilarious that a potential $68-70 million opening, in only two markets, would still be considered "bad". Mental.

 

-Misleading people
-Still pushing the agenda that continuity doesn't matter to the audience
-Pushing for overblown, bloated movies he thinks will still make 2007-2009-2011 money
-Not letting the directors, writers do their thing and actually fix the franchise

Even if it's not Bayverse when it's all said and done, he's done enough damage behind the scenes that he can still be blamed for a lot of the franchise's flaws. I remember when everyone hated Don Murphy (and for good reason, dude was a blowhard), but Lorenzo took first place with a big-ass grin on his face. Bay's just sitting there "I still don't care. Am I getting paid? That, I care about."

When those markets are among the largest and one's the actual home turf, yeah...that's still considered bad. That's not mental. Batman Begins did well with critics, but failed at the box office. WB knew they had a gem if it was handled correctly, so they greenlit the sequel and the rest is history. Billions of dollars by the end of it. Had it not been for WB saying "No, we want to continue working with Christopher Nolan, he's got something here", it would've been disastrous.

ROTB could absolutely be sitting in the same situation, TLK certainly did. It's not mental, it's how the industry works. If no one comes out to see it, it's going to fail and tank. (That's any movie, btw, not ROTB specifically.) If an opening is below estimates, or the estimate themselves are low, it can really hurt a film's credibility. If you can't make your money back at home, that means it's not their greatest effort. Bay tried appealing to the Chinese and it blew up in his face. They were offended that he didn't showcase China as he had agreed to, they filmed a lot of it in Detroit and nowhere near as much as they could've/should've in China (which was part of the agreement), and TLK was even worse.

Mental... *sigh*

 

I feel like they should focus more attention on video games as opposed to cartoons too. It may be too early to see what kind of impact the recent cartoons had on the youngins, but I'm guessing it didn't make that much of an impact just by anecdotal evidence. The cartoon lines never sell in my area. Hasbro is a toy company, first and foremost, and in the last few years (maybe decade or so) they seem to have forgotten this. Yes, media is important for a toyline to succeed, but it's got to be appealing and got to make the kiddos want to buy the toys.

 

I have to agree about the video game thing. Outside of Go Dog Go! or the Paw Patrol Movie, I can't recall a time my son's actually sat down and watched a cartoon that wasn't a Disney movie (and even then, he doesn't sit still long enough to watch the whole thing). He loves games, he loves YouTube. If they made a game and a YouTube show and tied toys into it, he might just sign on for it. I'd imagine a lot of kids would.

I find that it's collectors, not kids, snapping up Cyberverse and Earthspark toys. I can't recall a time I've seen kids actually eyeballing them in a store. (Let alone any TFs for that matter...)

 

The only people that peruse the TF section in my area are grown men (myself included). Kids walk right past all of it, and maybe the moms are rushing them along because of the strange men standing in a toy aisle. Again, it's all anecdotal, but I think it all adds up to nothing good.

I second your idea of a Youtube show. Just make an 10 or 11 minute little animated action-packed segment. Would be cool if it was stop-motion animation like the LEGO movies. Make a decent video game too. Hell, put Optimus Prime and Bumblebee in Fortnite or whatever else kids play these days.

 

I don't know, the fact Lorenzo and Caple won't shut up about trying to not contradict the Bayverse timeline? The existence of the Bayverse itself therefore is an influence on how this movie was developed, specifically so the movie wouldn't make it impossible to possibly resolve the timelines later, since otherwise if this wasn't connected...who would even give a shit about a supposedly unrelated continuity?

Not to mention the original leak of ROTB, which has held true up to this point for the most part, flat out said the 'twist' is the connection to Bayverse. This hasn't been brought up again in subsequent leaks, but none of those leaks had anything outright stating the movies weren't in continuity with Bayverse, either, and the Multiverse being a thing thanks to the Unicron bio card just makes it even more likely they're trying to sidestep the flaws built up over the past decade.

I actually was tempted to make that comparison about this being an abusive relationship earlier, so I get where you're coming from.

I'd also say Universal proper as opposed to just Paramount.

The numbers themselves are suspect. New box office predictions, based on social media activity, after how many trailers dropped in just this week? And the numbers jump to twice as much as before? That would suggest the original predictions were horribly off the mark with the comparisons to box office bombs like Shazam 2 or Morbius.

 

The movie can open to 300+ milion worldwide and some here are still going to cope and say its somehow a failure lol.

 

Yeah so maybe, maybe it’s best to wait till we are closer to the film to make projections that farther away.

I figured it would go up as we get closer and glad to see it is so. Along with key to remember not everyone book’s tickets weeks in advance. Like I checked my local theater on opening day at 5:00pm onward and besides me, all the seats where empty. Not only that Across The Spider-Verse which is projected to triple the first films opening at 5:15pm opening day onward is completely open in seats. Which in the coming weeks for sure for both will be taken.

If ROTB is good and gets good work of mouth from reactions and reviews I think it could slighly exceed the projection similar to GOTG Vol. 3 but not expecting it.

Happy to see the projection is higher. The gab in time between TLK (6yrs), and the good work of Bumblebee helps for sure.

 

That would require the movie to exceed the performance of the Super Mario Movie, which made over $200 million opening worldwide across five days.

It certainly wouldn't be a failure, but it also would raise eyebrows if it did better in opening than literally every single movie ever made except Avengers Endgame.

 

Super Mario scored 378 milion worldwide opening weekend.
If ROTB does around 300+ milion most of that is going to come from china and the rest of the international box office. Domestic the movie will probably open in the 60-90 milion range.
The movie is going to open anywhere between 250-350 milion worldwide.