Friday Box Office: 'Transformers: Age of Extinction' On Its Way to $100M Weekend
Further illustrating just how little critics' reviews matter to the general, moviegoing public, Transformers: Age of Extinction delivered a $41.6 million opening on Friday in North America, putting the fourth movie in Michael Bay's Transformers franchise well on its way to a weekend opening of over $100 million.
If so, Transformers: Age of Extinction, which cost $210 million to make, would be the first film of 2014 to earn $100 million in its opening weekend. And it's not just a domestic powerhouse either, as the blockbuster opened overseas to the tune of $80 million. Thus, the worldwide gross for the movie so far is a staggering $121.6 million. The tremendous success of the film in its very first weekend topples the similarly gargantuan successes of other summer tentpoles since the start of the season, such as Godzilla ($93.2 million), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($91.6 million), and X-Men: Days of Future Past ($90.8 million). With no obvious competition in the month of July, this could end up becoming the most successful Transformers film to date, and might just reign as the highest-grossing film of the summer, with only Guardians of the Galaxy in August standing between the Autobots and box office supremacy.
In other early box office news, 22 Jump Street continues to do solid business in its third weekend. With its Friday take of roughly $5 million, the movie has now surpassed the entire gross of its predecessor, 21 Jump Street, which brought in $138.5 million over its lifetime. Maleficent and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are also still in the race, as both are expected to surpass the $200 million milestone domestically.
We'll keep you posted on the final box office totals as the weekend rolls on. Until then, it looks like Transformers: Age of Extinction will be sticking around on the Top 10 for a while. (Hell, at this rate, it might BE at the top for a while)
Credit: Paramount Pictures