‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ Ignites to $110 Million at International Box Office, $170 Million Globally

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egyptian comedy “Beit El Ruby,” about social media’s disruptive impact on the life of a quirky family, has scored a strong opening weekend in Saudi Arabia, ousting “The Flash,” in its second frame, from the top spot. The local farce led by Egyptian superstars Karim Abel Aziz and Kareem Mahmoud Abdel Aziz was released on June 22. It has scored roughly 73,000 admissions across Saudi Arabia, grossing more than $1.1 million in its first frame. “The Flash,” by contrast, garnered a combined total of 91,000 admissions in Saudi cinemas in its first two frames. According to the film’s co-distributor Front Row Arabia, the “Beit El Ruby” bow marks the fifth highest opening for an Arabic film in Saudi, which is the Middle East’s top theatrical movie market.

Refresh for latest...: After two major studio movies bowed last weekend, this session was one of holdovers for Hollywood with mixed results.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “The Flash” continues to stumble at the box office, collecting $26.6 million from 78 international territories over the weekend and bringing its overseas tally to just $123.3 million. The Warner Bros. comic book movie, starring Ezra Miller as the eponymous, timeline-spanning speedster, has grossed $210.9 million globally, including a lousy $87 million at the domestic box office. It’s far less than what a film of its size and scope — it cost $200 million to make and another $100 million to market — needs to break even in its theatrical run. China is leading the foreign territories with a lackluster $23.6 million followed by Mexico with $14.4 million and the United Kingdom with $8.5 million.

Naman Ramachandran “Adipurush,” director Om Raut’s retelling of Indian mythological epic “Ramayana,” emerged the fifth highest box office earner in the world in its opening weekend, despite some mixed reviews at home. The film, which stars Prabhas (the Baahubali franchise), Kriti Sanon (“Bhediya”) and Saif Ali Khan (“Vikram Vedha”), opened on June 16 worldwide in Hindi, Telugu Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada-language versions. Raut’s storytelling, which uses modern techniques to retell the ancient epic, divided critics, but evidently had little dissuasive effect on audiences. “Adipurush” scored a $2.5 million weekend in India and $30.6 million internationally, making it the fifth highest weekend grosser after “The Flash,” “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and “Elemental,” according to numbers released by Comscore. It was the second highest Indian worldwide opener of the year after Shah Rukh Khan’s “Pathaan” and the fifth highest Indian opener of all time after “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion,” “RRR,” “K.G.F: Chapter 2” and “Pathaan.”

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter After struggling at the domestic box office, this weekend’s two major releases — the Warner Bros. superhero adaptation “The Flash” and Disney’s Pixar adventure “Elemental” — failed to catch fire with international audiences. “The Flash” pulled in $75 million in its international box office debut, which doesn’t sound all that bad… except when considering the movie is available in 78 overseas markets. That means it failed to hit $1 million in the vast majority of the territories in play. China led the way with a lackluster $13.8 million, followed by Mexico with $9.4 million, the United Kingdom with $5.3 million, Korea with $3.7 million and Brazil with $3.5 million.

Refresh for latest…: Warner Bros/DC’s The Flash sped into 78 overseas markets this weekend, grossing $75M, below the $85M-$95M we saw coming into the frame. With domestic’s slow-crawl three-day included, that makes for a $139M global opening. This is lower than projections, with general audiences not rushing out to see the deeper universe pic.

Ben Croll The walls of Barcelona’s international convention center might soon rattle once the 4,000 European exhibitors, suppliers and service providers in town for the CineEurope trade show breathe out a collective sigh of relief. At the root of such succor are Europe’s more than encouraging box-office admissions, which saw a marked uptick in late 2022 and have continued to rise into the new year. “I think this edition will be very much about celebrating because 2022 was a much better year than 2021,” says Laura Houlgatte, CEO of the Intl. Union of Cinemas (UNIC), which tends to the needs of cinema trade associations and exhibitors across the old continent. “[What’s more] the numbers for the first quarter of 2023 have left everyone in a very good mood.”

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros./DC’s The Flashper box office sources is playing like a deeper universe superhero movie with around $9M in Thursday night previews which began at 3PM. While the pic’s critical score on Rotten Tomatoes has fallen to 67% fresh from 71% fresh, audiences are enjoying it more at 88%. That’s a good sign.

Naman Ramachandran Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” led the U.K. and Ireland box office for the second consecutive weekend with £4 million ($5.1 million), according to numbers from Comscore. The web-slinging animation now has a total of £16.2 million. Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts” debuted in second place with a healthy £2.9 million. In its third weekend, in second position, Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” collected £2.1 million for a total of £19.9 million. In fourth place, another Disney title, “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3” earned £511,837 in its sixth weekend for a total of £35.5 million. Rounding off the top five in its fourth weekend was Universal’s “Fast X” with £475,640 and a total of £14.2 million.

Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, released in UK cinemas last week, features an extended action sequence on Machu Picchu – and in an exclusive interview with NME, the cast revealed the strict guidelines they had to follow during filming on the sacred Inca mountain ridge.In the sixth film in the franchise, which is based on the successful Hasbro toy line of fighting robot aliens, Dominique Fishback (Swarm) and Anthony Ramos (In The Heights) play humans caught up in a war for space supremacy between the Autobots and their evil enemies the Terrorcons. The movie switches location half-way through to Machu Picchu, Peru, where production on the historic religious site dating back to the 1450s is closely controlled.“You definitely couldn’t eat or drink or anything on the mountain,” said Fishback. “And you had to hike back down in order to use the bathroom or anything.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” enjoyed a $38.9 million (RMB276 million) opening weekend in mainland China. The score was comfortably the biggest by any film between Friday and Sunday and the second biggest opening by a Hollywood film this year in the territory. Data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway suggests that the film accounted for some 63% of China’s nationwide gross box office over the weekend. Giant screen systems provider, Imax reported that the film earned $5.9 million of the total from its screen network in China, or some 15% of the China total.

EXCLUSIVE: After the Transformers was gearing down, filmmaker Steven Caple Jr. was able to put gas back into the tank of the storied Paramount Hasbro movie franchise with Rise of the Beasts this weekend which opened to $171M worldwide, stealing the crown from Sony Animation’s strong Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. On today’s episode of Crew Call, Caple Jr. tells us he’s in talks for another Transformers sequel — and much of that involves that cliffhanger scene between Anthony Ramos and Michael Kelly.

“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” stormed into theatres worldwide this weekend, amassing a staggering $110 million at the international box office. 

Rotten Tomatoes. “Rise of the Beasts” will need that audience buzz as it faces competition for the 18-34 demographic — which made up 54% of its opening day audience — from Warner Bros.’ “The Flash” next weekend.

J. Kim Murphy The summer season has its first genuine battle for top of the heap, as “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” looks to fend off last week’s top release “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” “Rise of the Beasts” put its foot on the gas with $25 million on its opening day, a figure that includes $8.8 million in Thursday previews. The film is projected to land near a $60 million opening through the three-day frame, which would land at the higher end of estimates heading into the weekend. Once a box office juggernaut, Paramount has attempted to reengineer the “Transformers” franchise for future longevity. The first three entries, directed by Michael Bay, each crossed $300 million in North American grosses, while threequel “Dark of the Moon” and its follow-up “Age of Extinction” both surpassed $1 billion worldwide. But Bay’s final production, 2017’s “Transformers: The Last Knight,” saw diminished returns, finishing with $130 million stateside and $605 million worldwide — almost half of the $1.1 billion in ticket sales earned by “Age of Extinction.” Paramount released the spinoff “Bumblebee” in 2018, produced on a comparatively smaller budget and met with $467 million worldwide.

Jon Burlingame On the scoring stage at 20th Century-Fox studios in Burbank, composer Jongnic Bontemps is walking around in a “Transformers: The Movie” T-shirt – that’s the animated cartoon from 1986, not the $200-million summer blockbuster he’s just scored. “Violins, play a little softer,” he tells the musicians via intercom from the glass booth behind the stage. “It has to be emotional.” Later, after a rehearsal on a different cue, he tells the string players, “It needs to feel like a warm blanket.” Bontemps is making movie history. He has just spent two years writing the music for “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” the seventh in the big-screen franchise, and he’s supervising the recording of the final pieces of the score with a 74-piece orchestra. The film opens Friday.

Jordan Moreau The Autobots are rolling out once again at the box office. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” picked up $8.8 million at the domestic box office in Thursday previews. It’s revving up to battle last week’s No. 1 movie, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” in its opening weekend. Paramount’s “Rise of the Beasts” is looking to bring in $50 million to $60 million this weekend, but its box office wheels may get caught in the web of “Across the Spider-Verse,” which is aiming for $45 million to $55 million in its sophomore outing. Last week, Sony’s Spidey sequel opened with a massive $120 million.

“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” began its domestic box office sprint on Thursday with $8.8 million in preview screening grosses. That is on par with (sans inflation) the $8.8 million earned via Tuesday previews for “Transformers: The Last Knight” in June of 2017 and the $8.75 million Thursday preview gross of “Transformers: Age of Extinction” in 2014.

Refresh for more analysis Paramount/Skydance/Hasbro’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts grossed $8.8M in previews from 3100+ locations — that’s from a fan event tonight at 7 p.m. on Wednesday and previews that began at 3PM on Thursday.

2018’s surprising “Bumblebee” gave us some hope that the series still had some gas in the tank. Running time: 127 minutes. Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and language.) In theaters.Wrong! The fuel gauge is at “E” — for excruciating.