The Michael Bay movie is a hit with audiences all over the world, including Ireland. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen generated the second biggest opening in US box office history this weekend with a gargantuan $201.2M in its first five days, according to studio estimates, sending the overall marketplace to its highest gross of the year. The Paramount release averaged a stunning $26,453 over the Friday-to-Sunday period and a gigantic $47,531 over five days. The movie also performed extremely well at the Irish box office, where it has become the biggest three day opener for 2009, making 1,084,501 euros in its opening weekend. Other overseas audiences account for a whopping 72% of the movies income. Making it the second biggest global blockbuster for the year trailing just behind Angels & Demons which has collected $467.7M in seven weeks. The only other film to ever gross more in its first five days at the US box office was last summer’s The Dark Knight which hauled in a slightly better $203.8M from 4,366 venues. The first Transformers bowed to $155.4M in 6.5 days and needed 12.5 days to break the double-century mark on its way to a $319.2M finish. The Michael Bay-directed pic set a number of other box office milestones. It set new records for a June opener, beating the $93.7M of 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and for a live-action film from Paramount exceeding the $100.1M of last summer’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In fact, Shia LaBeouf hopes to become the first star with $300M+ blockbusters over three straight summers with Transformers, Crystal Skull, and Fallen. The new Optimus Prime adventure also set a new five-day debut record for a Wednesday opener easily beating the $152.4M of Spider-Man 2 from 2004. The onslaught began at 12:01am on Wednesday with an explosive $60.6M opening day haul which included over $16M in business from late Tuesday’s post-midnight shows. It was the second largest opening day for any film after the $67.2M for Dark Knight which bowed on a Friday. Grosses dropped 53% to $28.6M on Thursday, rose 29% to $36.8M on Friday, and climbed again by 10% to $40.6M on Saturday. Paramount is being aggressive with its Sunday estimate of $34.6M projecting just a 15% dip from Saturday. Final grosses will be reported on Monday afternoon. The Friday-to-Sunday tally is the seventh best of all-time and the largest for a film not debuting on a Friday. Overseas audiences were crazy for robot action too as the second Transformers flick has pulled in a stunning $186M since its launch a week ago making for a jaw-dropping $387M worldwide cume which already makes it the second biggest global blockbuster for the whole year trailing just Angels & Demons which has collected $467.7M in seven weeks. A whopping 72% of that take has come from outside of North America. Fallen is playing more evenly with domestic accounting for 52%.
