Hollywood just may have cracked the code to succeeding at the overseas box office; make your movie very loud, put a lot of trucks in it, and give it a barely-passable plot. Indeed, given that Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has soared to the second-highest Chinese opening of the year for an American production behind only Fast X, it seems like that’s the golden formula.
Steven Caple Jr.’s Rise of the Beasts nabbed $40 million at the box office over the course of its opening weekend, leaving the likes of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – which topped the Chinese charts last weekend with an opening of $17.2 million – in the dust.
Early earnings look to be an omen as well, with Spider-Verse projected to end its run in China with a $45 million total, while Rise of the Beasts is on course for a final gross of $85 million in the same respect.
The victories seem to end for Transformers at the international box office, however; Spider-Verse may have been out for a week longer, but its total worldwide gross ($389.9 million) has nearly quadrupled its production budget of $100 million, while Rise of the Beasts, which has a reported production budget as low as $195 million, is still roughly $20 million away from recouping that at the time of writing.
Moreover, the gulf of distance in the two films’ critical reception is nothing short of overwhelming; glowing praise for Spider-Verse continues to pour in from fans and critics alike, while Rise of the Beasts, as hearty an upgrade as it is from the Michael Bay era, is barely treading water from a critical perspective.
At the end of the day, fans of the web-slinger and the Autobots alike all have something to enjoy at the moment, and that just might be the biggest victory of all.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is now playing in theaters.