Paramount’s Transformers: Age of Extinction Thursday night box office ticket sales totaled $8.75 million in what could be the beginning of the first film in 2014 to achieve a $100 million or higher opening weekend at the North American box office.
The Thursday night opening is on part with other tentpole films released this year including The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($8.7 million) and Godzilla ($9.3 million), but well short of the $13.5 million the previous film in the franchise, 2011’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon, achieved on its opening night. While those films opened at 7pm and enjoyed two showings per screen before midnight, Transformers 4 opened at 9pm and its nearly three-hour runtime took those first showings right up to early Friday morning.
Opening weekend box office estimates have Transformers: Age of Extinction wrapping its opening weekend somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million based on the 4.233 locations it is playing at. IMAX and 3D ticket prices will work to its advantage; however, the excessive 2 hour, 45 minute duration will reduce showings and could keep the film from reaching triple digits. Dark of the Moon came up a couple million short at $97.9 million despite a Thursday night opening nearly $5 million higher.
Read our Transformers: Age of Extinction review.
The current top opening film of 2014 is Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier with just over $95 million. It could be a tight race for Age of Extinction to inch past that mark if moviegoers heed the warnings of critics that have mostly blasted Bay’s latest effort.
While Transformers: Age of Extinction is off to a hot start at the foreign box office with $30 million already including record midnight openings in China and Russia, it will be a stretch for the latest Michael Bay explosion-fest to reach the $1.1 million worldwide gross of Dark of the Moon. The human cast has been completely replaced with Mark Wahlberg taking over leading man duties from Shia LaBeouf, joined by young newcomers Nicola Peltz and Jack Reynor, and the film is opening a week before the July 4 holiday weekend.
Friday box office estimates for Transformers: Age of Extinction will be reported early Saturday.
