TheTransformersfranchise has been a long-running staple of the media landscape for some time now, and for good reason. From the series' beginnings as a Saturday morning cartoon to the huge, 200 million dollar live-action films,Transformershas been a staple in the public consciousness for many years. Despite this huge reach, the latestTransformersfilm,Transformers One,has been struggling at the box office, even with stellar review scores from both critics and audiences, leaving many to ask why.
A film aboutOrion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry), two Transformers who eventually become the heroic Optimus Prime and the evil Decepticon Megatron respectively, seemed like it would be ready to be a box office hit.Transformers Onetelling the origin storyof the two most well-known characters from a very well-known franchise making its way to the silver screen seemed likeit could be the shot of adrenaline thatTransformersneeded, but unfortunately,Transformers One,despite the critical reaction, has been falling short of expectations by quite a significant margin.
After Their Wild Initial Success, Things Went Downhill Quickly
Transformers One’sbox office woes are the unfortunate byproduct of the franchise simply running out of steam. After an initial high that grew until the end of the first trilogy, resulting inTransformers: Dark of the Moon’s $1.12 billion box office run,Transformersquickly lost most of its goodwill, aspeople believed they had seen everything the franchise had to offer.Age of Extinctionmade an excellent $1.10 billion, but the subsequentThe Last Knightearned a comparatively mild $605 million, a clear sign that people were simply tired ofTransformers.
$145-200 million
$709 million
$200-210 million
$836 million
$195 million
$1.124 billion
$210 million
$1.104 billion
$217-260 million
$605 million
$135 million
$468 million
$195-200 million
$439 million
Things only began to get worse for the series, as the following film,Bumblebee,performed worse, albeit on a slightly lighter budget, but soon after,Rise of the Beastscontinued this trend,hitting the lowest box office numbers for the franchise. This trend shows just how fatigued audiences have been withTransformersmovies, and unfortunately, only one year sinceRise of the Beast’s failure,Transformers Onedoes not seem able to buck that trend.
Transformers One Shows How Much Damage Michael Bay Did To The Franchise
It’s Unclear If Or When The Series Will Recover
Transformers Onefailing at the box officedespite being a good film is a poor sign for the franchise’s future. On a $75 million dollar budget, it had only managed to make around $72 million by the end of its second weekend in theaters, which when factoring in marketing and distrubution costs, is a very poor performance.Transformers Oneis simply unable to reach a wide enough audiencein order to make the money it needs to count as a successful project, and much of that failure can be traced back to how the franchise was treated under Michael Bay.
Transformers One’s Sequel Story: What Should Happen To Optimus Prime & Megatron Next
While ending its narrative on a well-rounded note, Transformers One also paves the way for new future story developments for Megatron & Optimus Prime.
While the originalTransformersmovies were successful, critically, their reception was luckluster, with most criticisms aimed at the storytelling and characters. The spectacle and action setpieces were enjoyable, but over the course of those first five films,people began to expect movies that only had big robot action as the draw, and eventually lost interest. This has led toTransformers Onebeing mostly ignoredby general audiences, an unfortunate byproduct of the disposable nature with which the previousTransformersfilms were treated.
Will Transformers One Rebound At The Box Office?
It Has Been Done Many Times Before
Despite the initial very lukewarm reaction,Transformers Onecould potentially rebound and become a success for the studio. Many movies have come out under similar circumstances, in franchises that seemed tired and out of ideas, while still making a solid amount of money. Movies that would eventually become big hits, likeSpider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse,Disney’sElemental,andPuss In Boots: The Last Wishall had a poor box office start, butpositive word of mouth drew people to theatersover the course of their theatrical run, enough for each to be considered a success.
In order for a movie to be considered a success, it generally needs to make two to three times it budget back, to account for marketing and distribution costs.
The only question is whetherTransformers Oneis actually capable of turning its luck around and making the money needed to warrant a continuation.If Paramount lets the movie stay in theaters for a whilewithout dumping it on streaming in the hope of getting a few more views,Transformers One’s excellent reviews and glowing recommendationscan lead to more and more people deciding thatTransformers Oneis worth their time, giving it its theatrical second wind. With enough of a comeback, the film could inspire a continuation that brings theTransformersfranchise back to its days of box office success.
Transformers One
Cast
Transformers One is an animated action-adventure movie that marks the first animated feature-length film for the series in decades. The film will be a prequel to the franchise, and will tell the story of Optimus Prime and Megatron in their early years, how they met, and a closer look at the war on their home planet, Cybertron.
