‘Transformers 4’: Will Its Run Time Hurt Its Box Office Performance?

With no other wide releases this weekend, Transformers: Age of Extinction(Transformers 4) is looking to dominate the box office and become the first movie of the 2014 summer season to open with more than $100 million, according to a report from The Wrap.

Transformers 4 will be releasing to 4,200 theaters nationwide and 35 foreign countries including China, where some of the film takes place. And while it’s doing well in tracking and online ticket sales, there is some concern about how moviegoers will feel with a nearly three-hour run time for Transformers 4.

A longer run time means less time slots for theaters to show the movie. But the amount of theaters in which Transformers 4 is opening may help compensate for the lack of showtimes. Jeff Bock, vice president and senior analyst for Exhibitor Relations, said that there may be some who will complain about Transformers 4‘s run time, but the “true Transformers faithful” won’t have an issue with it.

“This is a proven quantity, and they’re not reinventing anything,” Bock added.

Clocking in at two hours and 45 minutes, Transformers 4 is the longest entry in the franchise, but not by too much. The first and second Transformers films were just a few minutes shy of two and a half hours, while the third was nearly two hours and 35 minutes.

The Transformers franchise has been hugely successful worldwide. Box Office Mojo reports that the first Transformers film brought in $709.7 million worldwide, while Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon brought in respective totals of $836.3 million and $1.12 billion.

Transformers 4 is also the first film to use the IMAX 3D Digital camera, according to a recent report from The Inquisitr, and all 353 IMAX theaters will be showing the film. With the cost to see a movie in IMAX, as well as the 3D surcharge from regular theaters, it would be no surprise if Transformers 4 scores more than the $108.9 million debut of 2009’s Revenge of the Fallen.

Bock added that Transformers 4 “should be the biggest movie of the summer.”

“There are good reasons the other studios are staying out of the way,” he said.

Bock also mentioned that Transformers 4 is likely to hold onto the number one spot for two weeks in a row, since the Fourth of July weekend won’t have “anything like it.”

With part of Transformers 4 being filmed in Hong Kong, moviegoers in China will most likely flock to theaters to see some of the skyscrapers in their country get leveled. And since each consecutive film has performed better than the previous in China, BoxOffice.com senior analyst and vice president Phil Contrino predicts Transformers 4 will make more than Dark of the Moon.

“If this doesn’t hit $200 million there, something will have gone wrong,” Contrino said. “We’ll see how things play out over the next week, but you could see our domestic total and the Chinese number get surprisingly close.”

[Image credit: Paramount Pictures via Digital Trends and The Hollywood Reporter]