In a franchise full of hits, "Transformers One" only pulling in $25 million in its opening weekend was a clear disappointment. Let's roll out the reasons why it underperformed.
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00:00In a franchise full of hits, Transformers 1 only pulling in $25 million in its opening
00:05weekend was a clear disappointment.
00:07Let's roll out the reasons why it's underperformed.
00:10When an Illumination or Pixar feature hits theaters, the expectation is that it's guaranteed
00:15to be a financial success.
00:17Unfortunately, not every animation studio is so lucky.
00:20Case in point, Transformers 1 distributor Paramount Pictures.
00:23The studio's homegrown animated movies over the years have had an erratic box office track
00:28record that includes a deeply worrying box office bomb.
00:31Sure, the company's responsible for lucrative features rooted in familiar IPs.
00:36The movie adaptations of famous kids' TV shows SpongeBob SquarePants and Paw Patrol were
00:41reliable moneymakers.
00:42Then there's teenage mutant Ninja Turtles, Mutant Mayhem, which was a late-summer 2023
00:47hit critically and a decent performer financially.
00:50This!
00:51Turtle, mutant, karate teens, I mean, this is a pretty good story.
00:56Since Paramount has also released a bevy of animated flops under its belt, Sherlock
01:00Gnomes and Wonder Park were both costly misfires despite launching in prime mid-March release
01:05dates.
01:06In July 2022, Paws of Fury The Legend of Hank continued its troubles with animated features
01:11at the box office.
01:12Part of the problem has been that Paramount doesn't release new animated movies on a super-frequent
01:17basis, so the studio hasn't developed consistently successful marketing techniques to aid each
01:22new release.
01:23It's possible for a movie with Mutant Mayhem-level buzz to overcome Paramount's animated movie
01:28doldrums, but Transformers 1 didn't quite have enough of the touch.
01:32Back in 2011, a Transformers installment could easily exceed $350 million domestically.
01:38But those days are over.
01:40Since the series peaked with Age of Extinction, which made over $1 billion in 2014, there
01:45has been a decline.
01:46The Last Knight from 2017 grossed over $600 million worldwide, yet still lost over $100
01:52million for Paramount.
01:53But the studio kept trying, with three more movies, including Transformers 1.
01:58The 2023 feature Rise of the Beast was particularly worrying, making just under $450 million worldwide.
02:06Even with the clear downturn, Paramount's lack of other big franchises led the studio
02:10to continue placing all its chips on the bots.
02:13A crossover movie between G.I.
02:14Joe and Transformers, also potentially starring Chris Hemsworth, is being rushed into production.
02:20The terrible opening weekend of Transformers 1 demonstrates that this saga is not an eternal
02:25source of revenue.
02:26The Autobots have overcome many enemies over the years, but even they are powerless in
02:30the face of audience indifference.
02:32We're not spies.
02:34But he is incompetent.
02:35The failure of Pixar's light year in 2022 came down to one worrisome statistic.
02:40Families comprised only 22 percent of its opening weekend audience.
02:44Summertime Pixar films need hordes of families to come to theaters to be profitable.
02:48If your PG-rated animated feature isn't resonating with families, something's gone horribly wrong.
02:54That phenomenon didn't just doom light year, it also unfortunately plagued Transformers
02:581.
02:59Across its preview screenings held two days before its proper release, Transformers 1
03:03amassed an audience that was only 28 percent families.
03:06More often than not, people buying Transformers 1 tickets were nostalgic adults.
03:10It'd be one thing if Transformers 1 opened to $100 million thanks to largely older viewers,
03:16but the already converted Transformers devotees' numbers aren't that big.
03:20General moviegoers, both young and old, gave the movie a shrug.
03:24What's extra worrisome is that younger-skewing movies tend to hold much better after opening
03:28weekend.
03:29Titles like Light Year, drawing in mostly nostalgic adults on opening weekend, typically
03:33drop like a stone after their debut weeks.
03:36Typically animated family films give each other about two weeks of distance.
03:39Brave and Madagascar 3, Europe's Most Wanted, did that in June 2012, for instance.
03:45Another example is The Secret Life of Pets 2 and Toy Story 4, in June 2019.
03:50There's a reasonable expectation that animated films are competing for the same audience,
03:54and spacing them out gives them each a chance for success.
03:57Yet September 2024 has provided a striking contrast to this norm.
04:01Just one week after Paramount's Transformers 1, Universal and DreamWorks Animation is launching
04:06The Wild Robot.
04:08That's two consecutive weekends with major new animated family movies, both starring
04:12robots.
04:13The Wild Robot is tracking for a domestic debut of over $30 million, so it's not like
04:18Transformers 1 opened just a week before a massive Minions sequel.
04:22But any competition for families is notable.
04:25Given that it's a little fresher and has some awards buzz, families may have perceived The
04:29Wild Robot as more of a must-see.
04:31Sometimes the qualities that make a movie great also doom it at the box office.
04:35The numbers for Furiosa reflected its unwillingness to give viewers the standard Mad Max Fury Road
04:41rehash.
04:42Transformers 1 is facing the same problem.
04:44In this case, not including human characters benefited this Josh Cooley directorial effort
04:49tremendously.
04:50The more streamlined narrative allowed bots like Optimus Prime and Megatron to come alive
04:54as three-dimensional characters.
04:56Unfortunately, focusing entirely on animated robots probably alienated many audience members.
05:01Previous Transformers movies leaned on the human element to draw audiences in, and put
05:06some famous faces in front of the camera to help even more.
05:09Transformers 1 technically had famous people in its cast, but they were all off-screen
05:13voiceover performers.
05:14That's not the same as promising audiences a new Mark Wahlberg action movie that just
05:18happens to feature big robots.
05:20Ditching the humans was the smartest artistic move that Transformers 1 could have made,
05:24and it also likely sealed its box office doom.
05:31In June 2024, three months before Transformers 1 opened in theaters, Paramount Pictures screened
05:36a nearly finished copy of the feature at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
05:40This massive gathering of animation devotees and artists responded positively.
05:45A month later, the production was screened yet again, this time for select members of
05:49the press, where it was again greeted with highly positive marks.
05:52Eventually, Paramount let Transformers 1 reviews drop eight days before its domestic debut
05:57after relentlessly preview screening the title.
06:00All these marketing pushes tried to signal to the public extreme confidence in this latest
06:04Transformers title.
06:05The confidence was spot on.
06:06The marketing tactic?
06:08Not so much.
06:09Unfortunately, Paramount kind of forgot the core demographic of Transformers 1 — families.
06:14Parents aren't exactly swayed by months of pre-release hype when deciding what movie
06:17their kids want to watch.
06:19The various Despicable Me movies have secured exceedingly worse critical reception, but
06:23they're still huge box office successes.
06:25In trying to drum up Transformers 1 hype like it was a limited-release arthouse title, Paramount
06:30made a serious marketing miscalculation that cost Transformers 1 dearly, and further narrowed
06:35its appeal.
06:36Parents will pay up for any movie their kids beg them to see, and generating film festival
06:40buzz means nothing to kids.
06:422018's Bumblebee opened on a flashback to the final days of Autobots and Decepticons
06:47duking it out on Cybertron.
06:49This battle was something of a breath of fresh air after years of the ultra-realistic and
06:54cluttered style of the Michael Bay Transformers movies.
06:56For Bumblebee, director Travis Knight opted to realize his characters as their colorful
07:011980s G1 counterparts.
07:04And for longtime fans, it was a glorious sight to see accurate, vibrant versions of Soundwave
07:08and Arcee on the big screen.
07:10This sequence did provide a problem for Transformers 1, though.
07:13After all, this reboot also employed G1-style character designs for Optimus Prime and Megatron
07:18in a bid to get nostalgic fans to buy tickets to this temple.
07:21However, that demographic already had their nostalgia itch scratched with Bumblebee years
07:25ago, and the novelty of seeing Transformers that look like their 1980s incarnations has
07:30worn off a little.
07:31However, it's hard to properly exploit nostalgia when a title like Bumblebee has already stolen
07:36a lot of the thunder.
07:37A sequence like the Cybertron battle that drew extra eyeballs to Bumblebee in 2018 ended
07:42up helping capsize Transformers 1 six years later.
07:45You know what?
07:46We are so screwed!
07:47If there's one subgenre families keep rejecting over the last 25 years, it's animated science
07:52fiction.
07:53A handful of hits exist in this space, like goofy comedy Monsters vs. Aliens or Pixar's
07:58quieter romantic drama Wall-E.
08:00Otherwise, though, this domain is almost exclusively littered with deeply devastating
08:04financial misfires.
08:05The Iron Giant in 1999 was a crushing blow for Warner Bros. feature animation, while
08:10Titan A.E. was a big factor in the closure of Fox Animation Studios.
08:15Even Disney has succumbed to this problem with titles like Treasure Planet.
08:18It's hard to pinpoint one reason these projects are so likely to sink.
08:21It may just be that the emphasis on intense action may deter families.
08:25Historically, audiences prefer seeing kid-friendly animated titles heavy on laughs and musical
08:30numbers.
08:31Unsurprisingly, this historical trend came back to haunt Transformers 1.
08:35Even with a final trailer emphasizing the film's comedic elements, Transformers 1 looks
08:39like the kind of punch-heavy animated sci-fi material family audiences have always given
08:44the cold shoulder.
08:45Allow me.
08:47Transformers lore was never simple, but each new movie in the franchise makes everything
08:50even harder to follow.
08:51This trend peaked with Transformers The Last Knight, which introduced a secret society
08:56known as the Order of the Witwickians that worked with the Transformers through every
09:00era of history.
09:01Because of the massive implications of this twist, it's no surprise that subsequent Transformers
09:05installments have opted to ignore elements introduced in The Last Knight in favor of
09:10more accessible standalone storylines.
09:12That approach reached its peak with Transformers 1, which takes things as far away from Earth
09:16as physically possible.
09:18Overgoing the domain of Sam Witwicky and company in favor of the planet Cybertron helped Transformers
09:231 from an artistic standpoint, giving the movie a blank creative slate to work with.
09:27Unfortunately, this element also likely turned off some moviegoers.
09:31The fact that Transformers 1 is a prequel and a reboot meant it couldn't draw in every
09:35single diehard fan of the previous films.
09:37Certain audience members nostalgic for the late-2000s blockbuster cinema of their youth
09:42may have even turned up their noses at a Transformers movie fully divorced from the explosive stylings
09:47of Michael Bay.
09:48Even though the original Transformers director is a producer on Transformers 1, the drastic
09:52change in style meant that the movie couldn't please everyone.
09:55Historically, prequels have been a deeply risky proposition at the box office.
09:59Minions, The Rise of Gru, and Star Wars Episodes I to III prove that this kind of franchise
10:04extension isn't always a financial boondoggle.
10:07But more often than not, prequels end up alienating audiences rather than exciting them.
10:12Going back to origin stories just isn't as enticing to moviegoers as promising further
10:16evolutions of beloved characters.
10:19Prequel duds like The Huntsman, Winter's War, Lightyear, and The King's Man prove this is
10:23a real pattern that producers need to be mindful of.
10:26Transformers 1 couldn't escape this historical precedent.
10:29Just like the prospect of meeting a young Harry and Lloyd failed to attract audiences
10:33to Dumb and Dumberer, the presence of new names behind the robots in disguise didn't
10:37do much to convince people to buy tickets.
10:39Besides, since the last two live-action Transformers movies, Bumblebee and Rise of the Beast were
10:44both prequels themselves.
10:45It seems like the franchise may have gotten a bit too convoluted and prequeled out.
10:50"...Impossible!"
10:51"...I enjoy that look of confusion."
10:54Although Chris Hemsworth is a key player in the highest-grossing film of all time, he
10:58wasn't the reason Avengers Endgame was such a smash.
11:00In fact, the Australian actor has a string of box office duds under his belt, with his
11:04most recent live-action effort, Furiosa, a Mad Max saga, being a serious disappointment
11:09in that regard.
11:10Of course, the fact that it was also a prequel probably didn't help, either.
11:13Despite that, Hemsworth was a major factor in the Transformers 1 marketing campaign.
11:17The new voice of Optimus Prime filmed an introduction for the first Transformers 1 trailer alongside
11:22co-star Brian Tyree Henry, while he and the rest of the One cast went to San Diego Comic-Con
11:27to promote the feature to fans.
11:29Chris Hemsworth's dedicated promotional blitz for Transformers 1 couldn't save the movie's
11:33big-screen prospects.
11:34The novelty of witnessing him in his first-ever leading voiceover role wasn't enough of a
11:38draw for fans of his more successful projects like Thor and Extraction.
11:42Of course, the inability of Transformers 1 to perform at the box office certainly went
11:46far beyond any one actor in its voice cast.
11:49However, it's clear that casting an Avengers veteran for the film's lead role did neither
11:53the movie nor its lead star's box office reputation any favors.