Ever since seeing those video clips of overseas midnight openings at stores and some of the other promotional items going on, am I the only one thinking that there is no interest in Transformers here in the USA? Is the enthusiasm more reserved here or is Transformers franchise facing extinction?
Transformers franchise is far from extinction here. I went through a town that is considered poor here and went to their Walmart and all of their stock was sold out on day one and all what was left was the kiddie stuff. All deluxes, voyagers, and leaders were completely gone. I always like to line up the transformers at my Walmart and make them presentable lol
It's definitely less enthusiastic over here in the UK. Most AOE toy displays have remained pretty full from what people have reported, and with the movie Generations figures being confined to exclusives but only the wave 1 deluxes so far having reached TRU, collectors have had to go to online importers to get their figures if they don't want to wait for an undeterminable amount of time. Saying that, I'm sure the movie itself will do well. People love a sic-fi/fantast/action flick, they're just not necessarily so much into the merchandise.
It's being heavily marketed overseas, because significantly more than half of TF box-office money comes from overseas. The marketing blitz in the states will hit closer to release. Over here, there are a LOT of huge films releasing in a very short time frame this summer - marketing is best spent right before release.
ROTF is not the highest grossing film in China, Avatar is. DOTM is the third or fourth highest grossing film in China.
Why do you think they named the movie Age of Extinction? Our Economy is Extinctioning. Our Dollar is becoming Extinct. Our Toys are become extinct. Truly some deep foreshadowing towards our US of A (or should I say Extinct States of America) ESA! ESA! ESA! I'm kidding though...
I think some of the overseas markets have advantages for the film makers over the US market. In some of these markets people don't have a background with this American geek pop culture so you don't have as many people saying they got something wrong. Geekdom in the US is strong enough that geeks can revolt when a film series varies too much from the expectations of geek culture. Outside of the US this is the first time for so many people to see Starscream so they can't say it's not like the Starscream of my youth. With more theaters being built and more people attending movies outside of the US it doesn't matter as much if you disappoint someone because there are plenty of replacement ticket buyers looking for their first chance to see a film in the franchise. With the number of ticket buyers getting smaller in the US disappointing people bad enough that they don't come back is a problem. Outside of the US they don't have the same sort of film culture so Bay likely doesn't get bashed as bad for his film making style as he does in the US. Sometimes in the US Bay bashing almost seems a national past time. From what I've seen of TV from outside of the US it seems like movie theaters don't have as much competition from TV. In the US when you get fed up with lame plots, bad characters, or another beef with the current trends in Hollywood you can just say well I'll stay home and watch TV or catch up on all the stuff I watching on streaming. Part of it might even be that Paramount is experimenting to see if they really need the US market at all. Instead of how can we American ticket buyers over franchise fatigue in the face of tough competition the plan seems to be let's just hope we enough outside of the US to make money after the cut is taken out.
Oh thank goodness I'm not the only oddball that does this. _____________________________________ Might just depend on where you are in the USA? People seem pretty enthusiastic around here.
how could that be? as sex-tainted and potbrownie filled as it was, its was still better than that dumb avatar film!
