‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ Crawls Past Important Global Box Office Milestone

Paramount was cautious about announcing its plans for the future of the Transformers franchise before the release of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and for good reason. The series was still learning to walk again, after the Michael Bay era ended in an unfavorable spot, and 2018’s spinoff title Bumblebee delivered a barely passable worldwide box office haul. What’s more, Rise of the Beasts wasn’t exactly a sure bet. A month after the film’s debut in theaters across the globe, it’s clear that the movie hasn’t quite performed as well as the studio would’ve hoped.

In its fifth weekend of release, Rise of the Beasts grossed $5 million at the domestic box office, and another $7.6 million from overseas territories, as it passed what looks like its final major milestone at the worldwide box office. As of today, Rise of the Beasts is a member of the $400 million club. After a so-so debut in June, the movie has made $146 million stateside, and $261 million from international markets, for a running global haul of $407 million. That being said, Rise of the Beasts remains the franchise’s lowest-grossing installment, and is still trailing Bumblebee’s $465 million lifetime global haul, which is beginning to look out of reach at this point.

But unlike that film, which scored the series’ best reviews, Rise of the Beasts cost a pretty penny and was received with a shrug of indifference. While Paramount wisely kept Bumblebee’s budget in check to a very modest $102 million after the worryingly low lifetime gross of Bay’s final film, Transformers: The Last Knight, the studio splurged handsomely on Rise of the Beasts, which reportedly cost nearly $200 million before marketing. Going by the general rule of thumb that movies this size need to gross twice their production budgets to break even, Rise of the Beasts looks like it’ll ultimately be in the clear.

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But is this the result that Paramount would’ve liked for a movie that is supposed to spawn a new trilogy and possibly even a crossover spinoff? Perhaps not. Rise of the Beasts’ biggest foreign market remains China, where it has remarkably raised nearly $90 million at a time when foreign movies aren’t exactly being welcomed with open arms. The movie also performed very well in Mexico ($19 million) and Peru ($13 million), but crucially, it underperformed in key European markets such as the U.K. ($9.7 million), France ($9.3 million) and Germany ($4.7 million).

How Does the Movie Compare to Previous Transformers Installments?

By comparison, Bay’s first Transformers film concluded its global run with $708 million in 2007, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen grossed $836 million in 2009, and the disappointing The Last Knight grossed $602 million in 2017. Two of the series’ top-grossing movies have made more than $1 billion worldwide — Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($1.12 billion) and the soft-reboot Transformers: Age of Extinction ($1.1 billion). Directed by Steven Caple Jr., Rise of the Beasts explores the Beast Wars storyline from the franchise, and stars Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback in live-action roles. You can watch our interview with Caple Jr. here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.