What Is Going On With The Transformers Franchise At The Box Office
Transformers has fallen out of favor.
While the box office is not the only measure of success for films, it is one of the most important to the studios making the movies, and unfortunately, the Transformers franchise appears to be in a freefall in terms of its box office. Transformers initially began as a series of animated TV shows for kids that highlighted a growing line of toys. The series gained momentum, and toy sales increased, but over time, Transformers has evolved to become something so much bigger, spanning various platforms and earning billions of dollars.
This series of shows about these mechanical aliens from the depths of space invigorated imaginations, and led to generations of followers who grew up adoring the show. Then, when the Michael Bay live-action movies began to debut in 2007, it felt like the franchise had grown up, and was ready to welcome back fans who grew up watching the animated shows. However, things began to change as more movies came out, leading to a sad state of affairs where these movies have fallen out of favor over time. And despite shaking things up in the last few movies, things have yet to improve.
Every Transformers Movie Has Made Less Than The Previous One Since The Age Of ExtinctionTransformers Has Consistently Earned Less Money With Each New ReleaseAny new franchise needs to prove itself and have room to grow. Some of the most popular franchises in cinematic history started strong, only to reach a peak after a few movies, including the MCU, Star Wars, and many more. And the same trend can be seen in the Bayverse Transformers movies with the first movie earning a significant sum, thanks to Bay's popularity as a director and the pre-existing fanbase for the franchise. Following this, the next sequels continued to build on that success, reaching a peak when the films were earning over a billion dollars per film.
Movies
Budget
Box Office
Transformers (2007)
$151,000,000
$708,272,592
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
$210,000,000
$836,519,699
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
$195,000,000
$1,123,794,079
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
$210,000,000
$1,104,054,072
Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
$217,000,000
$602,893,340
Bumblebee (2018)
$102,000,000
$464,731,819
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
$195,000,000
$439,241,749
Transformers One (2024)
$75,000,000
$128,317,666
Source: The Numbers
However, this success was short-lived. Beginning with Transformers: Age of Extinction, the movies began to decline in box office totals. With the most notable drop coming between Age of Extinction and The Last Knight, with the sequel earning over half a billion dollars less. Obviously, multiple factors have contributed to this decline, and things in the franchise have seen dramatic shifts since the end of the Bayverse, but the trend of earning less and less money with every new release is deeply concerning for the future of the franchise on the big screen.
Transformers Moving Away From The Bayverse Still Hasn’t Paid Off At The Box OfficeTransformers Can't Catch A Break Right NowMichael Bay was instrumental in bringing the Transformers to the big screen, with the director helming the first five films in the series. However, the movies did face several issues along the way, with recastings, and unusual changes in the larger storyline that made things feel inconsistent and disappointing at times. By the time The Last Knight came out, Bay was ready to step away from the project, and let someone else take over, despite still being a huge fan and producer behind the scenes. However, Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts failed to come anywhere close to any of Bay's entries in the series.
RelatedWhy Shia LaBeouf Didn't Return As Sam Witwicky For Transformers 4Shia LaBeouf's Transformers films were box office hits, but here's why he did not return as Sam Witwicky in Transformer 4: Age of Extinction.
This effort to shake up the series with a sort of prequel story featuring fan favorite Bumblebee struggled to gain traction, and likewise, Rise of the Beasts, which is by several measures one of the most ambitious and experimental entries in the series, continued the trend downward. Even more recently, the animated film, Transformers One, which is not necessarily set in the same universe, saw the franchise earn its lowest return of all time, with a tenth of what Dark of the Moon earned, and less than a fifth of the box office total for the debut film in 2007.
Michael Bay’s Transformers Formula Was Already Showing Worrying SignsThe Spiral Downward Started During Bay's Transformers TenureBut it's not as though the problem was Bay's directing. Even before Bay stepped down, the cracks were starting to show, and the fanbase was evidently fatigued. While most of his entries saw an increase with each new release, things started to track downward from Age of Extinction. And it was Bay's The Last Knight that suffered the biggest box office drop-off to date in the series. Whether fans were simply tired, the movies were becoming more repetitive, or the constantly shifting cast was becoming wearisome, the Bayverse was just as doomed as the rest of the movies in the series.
Bay did speak out about feeling that he had already told the story he wanted to tell by the time Dark of the Moon came out, despite the director staying on for two more entries after that. And maybe the audience could sense that the project was over, and sequels were being made more for the sake of having sequels than actually expanding on the narrative, and creating exciting new entries. Whatever the case, the Transformers franchise has not recovered, and according to the trend, it could be in trouble if things don't change drastically, and soon.
Transformers’ Recent Box Office Performances Don’t Reflect The Quality Of The MoviesThe Box Office May Be Declining, But The Movies Are Better Recieved Than EverUnfortunately, it's difficult to assess what exactly needs changing. The poor box office performance is not always a reflection of the quality of films, and in the case of the last three entries, there was actually a lot worth praising. In fact, according to the fanbase, and the Rotten Tomatoes scores of the last three entries, the quality of the series has actually gone up, not down. Where the first five films all received rotten scores from critics, topping out at 57% for Transformers, and averaging closer to 25%, the last three entries got scores of 91%, 51% and 89% respectively, placing them as the first, second and fourth-highest ranked entries in the series.
RelatedTransformers’ Next Live-Action Movie Is About To Make An Old Bayverse Criticism Even WorseTransformers is coming back with another live-action movie, but it should learn from the successes and failures of the past to get the best results.
And while the critics' scores are not always indicative of what the general audience feels, the audience scores show an even more positive response to Bumblebee, Rise of the Beasts, and Transformers One. So, if the quality is there, and the new creative directions are resonating with the fanbase, something else changed to stop the mass audience attending, leaving only the die-hard fans to support the franchise. And in all honesty, this is likely the issue. The first Bay directed Transformers movies appealed to the masses, with action, explosions, attractive casts, and a loose, but workable plot. Now, the franchise is dragging behind the success of this mass appeal.
Transformers
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