The fourth installment of the widely successful and widely criticized Transformers franchise has just passed $400 in earnings and is anticipated to top $600 by the end of the Fourth of July weekend. According to Forbes , Transformers: Age of Extinction had made $412.6 million at this time yesterday and is still climbing. Age of Extinction is on its way to smash the record in China for highest-grossing sales, looking to knock Avatar out of the number one spot. Transformers 4 might have made even more money if its release hadn’t been delayed internationally to avoid competition with the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
What is it that the fourth Transformers film got so right; especially since the first three were harshly reviewed by critics and fans alike? Is it because Hollywood-estranged star Shia Labeouf is gone from the Transformers series? Did Mark Wahlberg bring some much-needed star power to the Transformers films? Or is it something else that’s making Age of Extinction sell tickets through the roof? There is talk on the internet that the new human characters are more likable and easier to identify with. Wahlberg’s character has a family to protect, making the plot more familiar and accessible and less like a strange, other-worldly sci-fi flick.
The world may never know why Transformers 4 has been so successful. But the critics seem to think it isn’t any better than the previous three Transformers films. In fact, Transformers 4: Age of Extinction has the lowest aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes of any Transformers movie so far.
MTV.com reported that the film’s producer has addressed all the things wrong with Age of Extinction, according to critics. Lorenzo di Bonaventura made the following statement in defense of Transformer 4:
“There’s a combination of factors. Number one, critics do not understand this kind of movie. They just don’t understand, they don’t get why people like this kind of movie. They’re evaluating a movie like [ Transformers 4 ], that is meant for mass entertainment on a really epic scale, as though it’s a 1970’s Martin Scorsese movie… I think also, they just don’t want to have any fun, you know, like come on guys, let’s have a little fun here. We’re not pretending on our side to be making a big social statement or something, our intention is to entertain the audience.”
Transformers: Age of Extinction is the eighth film this year to pass $400 million, along with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Maleficent, Gozilla, Rio 2, The Lego Movie, X-Men: Days of Future Past and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. If Transformers 4 continues to earn big bucks at the box office, it could potentially land in the top five highest-grossing movies of all time.
[Image Via Paramount Pictures]