Robots in disarray
The 'Transformers' movie franchise has been in decline for years. Is a new animated movie or a future GI Joe crossover the answer?
The Gist
“Transformers One” opened to a soft $25 million this weekend.
It follows a downward trajectory for Paramount’s Transformers franchise.
What do moviegoers want out of Transformers movies? And can Paramount get the series back on track?
Hey everyone, welcome back to The Traverse. I’ve been quite busy, so sorry that the publishing schedule has been off this month. But I still crossed 200 subscribers this weekend, so thank you for signing up and reading. If you like my insights into the business of franchises and fandom, please share! With that, today’s edition looks at the state of Transformers.
If any movie series encapsulates the sorry state of franchise filmmaking over the last decade, it’s probably Paramount’s Transformers.
The robots in disguise got the live-action treatment in 2007 with a Michael Bay-directed summer hit that was followed by a couple billion-dollar grossers. But the quality wasn’t quite there, and after Bay’s fourth film “Age of Extinction,” they had completely lost any audience goodwill. So Bay’s fifth installment, “The Last Knight,” grossed less than any of the previous entries.
The 2018 Bay-less spinoff “Bumblebee” was a modest success and captured critical acclaim, but was nowhere near the kind of money makers the early films were, even “Last Knight.” And last year’s semi-reboot, “Rise of the Beasts,” earned even less, the lowest earner in the series so far.
That brings us to “Transformers One,” a new standalone animated origin story coming to theaters this weekend. The critical and audience buzz is excellent, but the movie is looking at a disappointing opening around $25 million, below most projections I’ve seen and second for the weekend behind reigning champ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” It’s on par with last year’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” also from Paramount, which also took an IP that had largely been in a live-action format in recent years and gave it an animated spin. It’s slightly below another movie of that type, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.”
Maybe “Transformers One” could have strong legs, riding a wave of positive word-of-mouth. It has an 89% Rotten Tomatoes critic score and received an A grade from Cinemascore, which surveys audiences on a movie’s opening night. Not to mention, there isn’t much competition in the way of family-friendly movies right now, as “Inside Out 2” and “Despicable Me 4” are winding down after dominating the summer.
No matter how the movie pans out financially in the end, it does bring to mind an important question, not just for the toy-based franchise but for its troubled studio, Paramount: What do fans, and the larger moviegoing public, want out of a Transformers movie?
As Paramount transitions to new management, with the larger company soon merging with Skydance, Transformers will likely continue to be one of the studio’s crown jewels. Despite lackluster later entries, the franchise has still grossed over $5 billion worldwide combined across seven live-action movies, and getting it back on track will be a priority.
Paramount seems to think that Transformers’ future, at least in live-action, is in the kind of “cinematic universe” schlock that other franchises have tried and failed to replicate. Execs have said that the next movie will be a crossover with GI Joe, which was teased at the end of “Rise of the Beasts.” But again, that movie underperformed, and Paramount has fumbled its execution of past Joe movies, most recently “Snake Eyes,” which made only $40 billion globally.
Related reading: How Paramount fell from its peak
On paper, a ‘formers/Joe crossover is a no brainer. But Paramount has chiseled away at the reputation of both franchises over the last almost two decades, to the point that that may not necessarily be the slam dunk Paramount thinks it could be (also a problem with other Paramount franchises). It would probably be wiser to get them back to a place of good standing with the general moviegoing public first; “One” could have been a good start, as people who have seen it seem to really love it.
For Hasbro, it’s probably infuriating seeing rival Mattel notch such a massive hit with “Barbie” last year, just as its own Transformers property faces an identity crisis, and I wonder how the Paramount/Hasbro relationship could change after the merger, if at all (Similarly, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” took a kid-friendly game property last year and made a billion-dollar hit out of it. Notice how both “Barbie” and “Super Mario” were firsts for their respective IP).
“Rise of the Beasts” was both a prequel to the Bay films and a sequel to “Bumblebee” while also attempting to reboot the franchise, while also setting up the shared universe. That’s just plain alienating for fans. Meanwhile, a “One” sequel seems up in the air depending on the box-office trajectory. It if’s more like “Lightyear,” another animated origin story that seemed to confuse the public, then that’s unlikely. If it’s like “Into the Spider-Verse,” then it’s another story. That enjoyed strong word-of-mouth and then resulted in a sequel, “Across the Spider-Verse,” which earned around the same just in the US that the first movie did globally.
But the franchise is also too valuable to Paramount for it to not be developing live-action installments. And sure, Spider-Man also exists in both worlds with the animated “Spider-Verse” movies and the live-action MCU entries. But Spider-Man is in a much different league.
The blueprint for that future, if Paramount is adamant about this crossover universe, is naturally in the comics. Image and Skybound last year rebooted the Transformers and Joe comics as part of a shared universe, but launched it as a surprise in a new, original comic series, “Void Rivals,” by Robert Kirkman and Lorenzo De Felici. “Transformers” issue 1 was 2023’s best-selling comic.
There was a time when Transformers movies topped the box-office charts, too. Building the franchise back to that kind of success takes on new urgency after this weekend.
Beyond the Traverse
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🎮 Ninento and the Pokémon Company are suing the makers of Palworld over patent infringement.
📺 The creators of HBO’s upcoming series “The Franchise” detail the chaos they uncovered in their research into superhero movies.
🤖 Lionsgate struck a deal with an AI company for it to mine its film and TV library.
I never cared about Transformers, even as a kid. They were cool toys, but that's about it. The first Michael Bay movie was flashy, funny, and full of cool moments. That's why I watched it. Once it started riding into more canon and lore, I lost interest.
Maybe that's the problem. These movies start well then try to focus too hard on the core fans that eventually traded against the entertainment value. I also think this is ultimately why Marvel movies started to lose steam. I liked the early stuff, then it became convoluted and pandering.
The studios don't need fresh IP. They need to stop thinking that the hardcore fans are their primary audience.
This needs to be a teachable come-to-Jesus moment for all studios as far as understanding the concept of "Popular Demand". If you want to build your studio tentpole plans around IP, you need to keep generating new IP. These Transformers movies had declining domestic box office from parts 2 to 6, only for a slight uptick in the recent one (which was still a flop due to the budget plus the weak overseas showing). It's been the same domestic formula for the three "G.I. Joe" movies.
And on top of it, we all need to be honest -- everyone knows these movies suck, including some of the people that made the bigger films hits.
Yeah, okay, maybe you made a fun new Transformers movie, from what I hear. But fans are already disinterested. They've figured it out. These movies haven't gone anywhere, no one missed them. They don't want them. The idea, after that ghastly second movie, that the studio was eyeing a bigger cinematic universe no one wanted (and they wasted SO many years trying) is just corporate incompetence on every level. Shut it down, Paramount.
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