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* Entire articles can and will be written about how this result ranks against its predecessors, but I've already put away my slide rule. It doesn't matter. The movie cost somewhere between $160 and $200 million, depending on how you're counting. It was released (in the US, anyway) two days ago. Worldwide, it has already earned $300 million. If anyone at Paramount is still counting, it's being done in between lap dances.

* As I have said many times before, everyone seems to hate Michael Bay's movies, but they pay good money to see them anyway. They keep breaking records and making lots of very rich people even richer. Michael Bay has achieved the corporate Holy Grail, which is to make so much money you don't even have to be good at your job any more.

* He is obviously a living God and none of us should ever question his judgment or his fabulous mane of golden hair ever again.

Felix Quinonez: Michael Bay is a living god? More like the Antichrist. I think the foreign and domestic grosses should be looked at separately. I think Transformers 4 will have a similar foreign box office performance to the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. For some reason those movies kept getting bigger and bigger overseas, long after domestic audiences realized the franchise had become a turd and abandoned ship. It's obviously a foregone conclusion that T4 will be a huge movie. But when all is said and done I believe that final worldwide gross will be very disproportionate, with a much bigger number coming from foreign markets.

As for the domestic numbers, its $100 million opening weekend is obviously very nice and it even sounds like it's performing similarly to the last couple of installments but you can't overlook the fact that this is the first one to actually open on a Friday. All of the other movies had burned off a lot of demand before even reaching the weekend. The second one made $91 million before reaching Friday and still opened bigger than this. The third one made $64 million before the start of the weekend and made pretty much the same as T4. I believe that by changing the release pattern this time around they were able to mask the fact that, at least domestically, the Transformers franchise is past its peak. The hardcore fans rushed out to see it on opening weekend but it will drop very fast. And I strongly believe that this will be the first installment in the series that doesn't make it to $300 million domestically. Again, similar to POTC. That franchise's fourth installment topped out at $240 domestically while all the three previous ones passed the $300 domestically.

Jason Barney: I can't believe I am going to write words which would come across as defending the Transformers franchise. I feel a little dizzy just writing this, but this is a fabulous debut. These films have done something, even if they are panned by critics and a good number of people who actually see them, that most franchises would dream about. Yes they suck, and yes the first Transformers is the only film in my adult life that I stopped watching because it was so bad, but Paramount seems to have targeted in on a formula for financial success and they are smiling all of the way to the bank. Even if the budget was $200 million, and even if we use the sloppy math and assume it must have a total global accumulation of double that number to make a profit, it will have surpassed that number before the end of July 4th weekend. We aren't talking about a flash in the pan horror film, or some well-reviewed independent flick that takes the world by storm. This is an established franchise, that despite the negative reviews, people flock to see....and I don't think it is really slowing down that much.

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