Transformers Rise Of The Beasts Narrowly Beats Spider-Man At Weekend Box Office

It was Miles Morales and the Spider-Verse versus the Transformers this weekend at the box office, and the bots won by a wide margin. Paramount Pictures sci-fi action movie Transformers Rise of the Beasts earned the No. 1 spot at the North American box office in its opening weekend, bringing in $60.5 million in domestic sales from Friday to Sunday. That’s a decent start for the seventh film in the live-action franchise, and it more than doubled the debut of its predecessor Bumblebee from last year.

The result gave the film, which cost around $200 million, a solid head-start and should ensure that it backs its budget quickly. Despite wildfires across Canada and the northeastern U.S., it also beat projections, which curbed moviegoing turnout in some regions.

And while some critics didn’t love it, the audience response was much more positive than that of The Last Knight, with an aggregated rating of 52% on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. Whether the film will maintain this strong performance over the long run needs to be clarified, but its first weekend results are encouraging.

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The movie managed to nab the top spot despite its main competition — the second-weekend holdover Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — dipping to third place with $55.4 million in its second weekend in theaters. Its total is up to $115.4 million domestically so far, and it also made a healthy start abroad with an estimated $110 million in international sales.

The film’s success is a testament to the popularity of the series, which has now produced six movies in total, all of which have passed the $1 billion mark in global box offices. It also shows that the reboot of the Hasbro toy-to-movie franchise is off to a great start, and this latest installment could prove to be its most successful if it continues to perform well.

As expected, most audiences for Rise of the Beasts were male, with 69% of ticket buyers coming from that demographic. However, the film was also well-received by female audiences and a diverse crowd overall. It drew an audience of 31% black, 28% Latino and Hispanic, and 25% Caucasian. Its PostTrak exit scores from audiences were 83% positive and 73% recommend, which are excellent numbers. This undoubtedly helped because it dominated premium theaters this weekend. It will have to continue performing like this to earn a profit, though. It must pull in some big overseas numbers for that to happen.