Please watch BUMBLEBEE in cinemas (NO SPOILERS)

[GoktimusPrime]

We All Vote With Our Wallets

My fellow fans, please consider watching Bumblebee in cinemas. It truly is an amazing film and unless the movie is a commercial success, then Paramount may not be convinced to make more Transformers movies like it. At the end of the day, we all vote with our wallets - and for movies this means box office earnings. The Michael Bay movies made loads and loads of money for Paramount, whereas Bumblebee apparently had the LOWEST box office opening of all Transformers films.
https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/1062010/Bumblebee-box-office-lowest-worst-Hailee-Steinfeld-projections-Transformers

Critics and fans both agree that Bumblebee is the best Transformers movie ever to hit cinemas. But unless people go to watch this movie then Paramount may remain unconvinced to make more like this, and may even consider returning to making future Transformers movies more like Michael Bay's style. At the end of the day movie studios are businesses and they make movies in order to make money. And we know that studios tend to be very risk adverse and will only consider changing things if it they think it's profitable. They moved away from Michael Bay because last year's Transformers The Last Knight wasn't very commercially successful. This is why they gave Travis Knight the chance to direct Bumblebee; when the Bay formula stopped working, they allowed Knight to drastically change it. But if Bumblebee doesn't work for them, then they may not consider running with the standards that Knight has set.

https://i.ibb.co/n7csmV3/temp.jpg

I understand that, thanks to Bay, we have Transformers movie fatigue. We've been burnt before with the past 10 years of Bayformers and may be reluctant to give Bumblebee a chance. But I can assure you that Bumblebee is different. It's thrown out all the things that you hated about Bay and put in so many things that you wish Bay had done. Bayformers may have been the Transformers movies that fans needed (commercially), but Bumblebee is the movie that fans deserve. Please help to make it a commercial success and send Paramount a loud and clear message -- we want more good Transformers films! And for those who've already seen it, please consider seeing it again in cinemas. I've already seen it twice (and wouldn't rule out watching it a third time). :)

For the past few years I've seen many of you say that you refused to watch Bayformers because you don't want to give Michael Bay your money for making unsatisfactory movies. You were voting against those films. I get it. You made a decision to financially vote against Bayformers. But please, when Paramount finally gets something right, as many of us as possible need to vote "YES" with our wallets. And please share this message with as many people as possible - Transformers fans or not, everyone will enjoy this film. I've seen so many reviews from people who previously hated Bayformers lump nothing but praise and love for Bumblebee. The only negative review I've seen was from some guys who also highly praised Revenge of the Fallen (a movie that even Bay admits was "crap"). So okay, if you love Bayformers then you might not like Bumblebee. :o

[Omega Metro]

The only negative review I've seen was from some guys who also highly praised Revenge of the Fallen (a movie that even Bay admits was "crap"). So okay, if you love Bayformers then you might not like Bumblebee. :o

Who are these reviewers? They sound like my type of guys:)
As a Michael Bay fan, I did find Bumblebee to be a bit dull. Apart from the Cybertron scenes and the 80’s soundtrack, there wasn’t much going for it. I went and saw the previous films 2 or 3 times at the cinemas but once is enough for Bumblebee.......sorry:o

[BigTransformerTrev]

I traveled 75 minutes to take a group of 5 children and 4 adults to see it in cinemas on the 22nd for my sons birthday.

I reckon I've done my part ;)

[optimus1]

I'm a massive fan of Bumblebee! 🚗🐝😎

All my cousins and even my sister want to watch it (again!)

[i_amtrunks]

Bad time of year to release, it’ll get lost in the big Boxing Day and new year releases. The terribleness of the last few movies will hurt it big time too.

[Bladestorm]

Movie Bumblebee is probably my least favourite core character, however, I do intend to go to see this movie when time permits as I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. I also like the premise of the "girl and her car coming of age" aspect and since there is allegedly a wee bit of that amazing red truck in the film it will at least appease me.

At the moment I am restricted by a puppy who can't be left alone for long, and now, this afternoon, by a sick son (who desperately wants to see the movie for the G1 characters like Soundwave and Shockwave). So hopefully they don't pull it from cinemas before we get the chance to go along.

All the reviews are good and I have to say I'm somewhat surprised people aren't opting to go and see it, especially as it is a nice multi-generational kids movie where adults can enjoy some action while their kids enjoy it too (at least that's how I'm feeling from all the marketing). The skeptic in me can't help but wonder if it would rate better if it had been a boy and his car...

I think it will do well in the Asian markets as they love anything with giant robots (and I can't say I blame them). The only risk is Bumblebee does tend to be a bit of a shelf warmer in China compared to other characters (unless that's because they make twice as many of him as they do Optimus.. I don't think that's the case?).
The issue then becomes - is the uptake by the Asian/Chinese market enough to push a US movie company to make another film or do they purely tie their agenda to the US market?

[GoktimusPrime]

I traveled 75 minutes to take a group of 5 children and 4 adults to see it in cinemas on the 22nd for my sons birthday.

I reckon I've done my part ;)
*on screen high five*

Solid effort :)

[Magnus]

I haven't seen Bumblebee yet, but have every intention of doing so when I find time.

Don't forget that the movie was released just before Christmas, and has solid competition in the form of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Mary Poppins Returns, and Aquaman. Any 'loss' on Bumblebee's part needs to take those factors into account, and I suspect Paramount's bean counters will do that.

Perhaps I'm being precious about it, but at the risk of starting an argument, was it really necessary to take a proverbial dump on Michael Bay to make Travis Knight look good?

Your choice of screengrabs in particular was clearly meant to minimise any 'characterisation' the Bay movies gave Bumblebee. It strikes me as disingenuous. Why not use this one (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DugrrOK3w7w/T0TayRrLSZI/AAAAAAAAAQM/NpvrIXvQFRQ/s1600/Transformers-Dark-of-the-Moon-Bumblebee.jpg) or this one? (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/L5LaTVmO5AM/hqdefault.jpg)


...we want more good Transformers films!

I find this view kind of simplistic. It seems to imply that Michael Bay and Paramount weren't trying to make good Transformers movies, which I find very difficult to believe. With millions of dollars at stake, I don't believe that the production team tries to make each Transformers movie the best it can be.


The only negative review I've seen was from some guys who also highly praised Revenge of the Fallen (a movie that even Bay admits was "crap")

Ok, I'm nitpicking this one point, but Bay never actually said that Revenge of the Fallen was 'crap'. This is what he actually said: (https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/michael-bay-transformers-2-regret/)


We made some mistakes. The real fault with [Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen] is that it ran into a mystical world. When I look back at it, that was crap. The writers’ strike was coming hard and fast. It was just terrible to do a movie where you’ve got to have a story in three weeks. I was prepping a movie for months where I only had 14 pages of some idea of what the movie was. It’s a BS way to make a movie, do you know what I’m saying?

[GoktimusPrime]

Perhaps I'm being precious about it, but at the risk of starting an argument, was it really necessary to take a proverbial dump on Michael Bay to make Travis Knight look good?

Your choice of screengrabs in particular was clearly meant to minimise any 'characterisation' the Bay movies gave Bumblebee. It strikes me as disingenuous. Why not use this one (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DugrrOK3w7w/T0TayRrLSZI/AAAAAAAAAQM/NpvrIXvQFRQ/s1600/Transformers-Dark-of-the-Moon-Bumblebee.jpg) or this one? (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/L5LaTVmO5AM/hqdefault.jpg)
I can't answer that without divulging spoilers. Those of you who've seen the film will understand why I chose those images, but I'm not going to discuss that here. Just a friendly reminder that the spoiler-filled discussion thread for Bumblebee is here (http://otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?p=601874#post601874), so if anyone wants to discuss that image or anything else to do with the story, please do so there. :)



I find this view kind of simplistic. It seems to imply that Michael Bay and Paramount weren't trying to make good Transformers movies, which I find very difficult to believe. With millions of dollars at stake, I don't believe that the production team tries to make each Transformers movie the best it can be.
Okay, let me qualify that when I say "good" I mean in terms of story-telling. I understand that this is subjective, and Michael Bay's movies certainly do have other qualities. The Bayformers films are definitely superior in terms of being thrilling spectacles that get the heart and adrenaline pumping. And Bay has been an excellent bums-in-seats director.

Love or hate Bayformers, one thing that the movies have come to be criticised for is becoming too repetitive and predictable. This is really well demonstrated in Nostalgia Critic's NON Review of Transformers The Last Knight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctembQrH_0k&vl=en), released well before that movie was released where he predicts most of what happens in that movie with a pretty high rate of accuracy. As the Nostalgia Critic says in this video, it's perfectly okay to love Michael Bay's Transformers films, but it's about time that audiences demanded something different. If you love Bayformers, that's fine. You have 10 years of films to enjoy, each one repeating its winning formula that made them popular. But for those who just want something different for a change, this is what Bumblebee has given us.

Also, here is a comparison of how critics have rated each Transformers movie (except for the Beast Wars theatrical movie (https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Lio_Convoy_in_Imminent_Danger!) which I couldn't find sufficient critical data for).
https://i.ibb.co/CKpWfG3/criticsratings.jpg

P.S.: This interview with Travis Knight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xECOOhaDdaI) talks about Michael Bay's involvement in Bumblebee as the film's producer and how supportive he was of Knight.

[KELPIE]

"Unsure"

The fact that they are flip-flopping on reboot or not reboot has me worried.

I'd rather they just scrap the continuity and start again. (Bee with a normal face would be nice).

However, from the trailer there is plenty of peripheral stuff to like.

As I said: "Unsure".

[griffin]

It's not so much the content of the movie giving it a poor performance at the box-office... it's about the marketing. This is why most big movies spend more on marketing now than the actual movie (Bumblebee might have had a budget of 130million, but I read somewhere that it has to make 250-300million to make money... probably thanks to those global promo tours they had in most countries... except ours).
For the actual marketing of the Movie, most of the trailers and TV ads I've seen focussed on the girl and the relationship between her and the car.... and I only saw one TV trailer that focussed on the robot fighting and special effects. If you spend a lot of money on certain elements of a movie and then don't promote it in your advertising, people aren't going to go see it, because they don't think there is any. We know its there because we are dedicated fans who have been following the production of the movie... but regular people who made up 99% of the billion dollar average of the first five movies, will think it is a drama, or more like ET than Transformers 1-5. It doesn't even market itself as "Transformers", with that word being absent on movie posters and advertising... so it isn't even cashing in on that multi-billion dollar brand name. Just calling it Bumblebee doesn't get the same word-association that a Transformers-Bumblebee would.

And my third point - Bumblebee tried to market itself as a family movie, which is not where most movie money comes from. Only three of the top 20 highest grossing movies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films) are PG or G (in Australia)... there is a reason why 85% of the highest earning movies are M rated, because the age demographics that are more likely to go to movies prefer to see something that isn't "kiddy friendly". Paramount in Australia had the option to have the movie rated M, but fought to have it PG... and it wouldn't have stopped parents taking their kids to it (most people I know still had their kids see the earlier ones), as they would have watched it and seen that it was kid-friendly.

And my final point, is that if you have a greater proportion of your audience being young kids, it means less money being generated (after costs), as kids tickets are cheaper than adult tickets.
A great movie doesn't guarantee a great return... and a great return doesn't guarantee that it is a great movie - as Transformers fans we know how much that is true, when comparing this one to the previous five.
And sometimes, there is just no obvious or rational reason why a movie succeeds or fails. Just look at Avatar - I still don't get why that movie earned so much - us2.7billion... for a movie that wasn't that exciting or spectacular, and to me was very predictable. I think it was a good movie, but not great... certainly not great enough to have earned 30% more than the next biggest movie... and that only 7 movies earned above 50% of its total earnings.

[Paulbot]

There’s no question why Avatar made so much money: it was the first film in the modern 3D format. It was a new novelty and the 3D worked (for most people) and millions wanted to experience it. Then you add on that cinemas charged extra for the film because of the 3D experience and boom. (There is absolutely no need for the additional 4 or 5 sequels James Cameron wants to make though unless they introduce some other techno focal breakthrough).

[GoktimusPrime]

The fact that they are flip-flopping on reboot or not reboot has me worried.

I'd rather they just scrap the continuity and start again. (Bee with a normal face would be nice).
This movie sorta leaves it open ended -- you can interpret it as a reboot or a prequel, it's up to you as an audience member. Live action TF continuity is a weird thing considering that they Bayformer films never much kept on continuity with each other. :o

The AllSpark Cube is the source of all life on Cybertron. Megatron made an ancient deal with the Fallen and must kill Optimus Prime for the Fallen to rise again and use the Matrix to activate the Star Harvester. But he also made an ancient deal with Sentinel Prime where Megatron must keep Optimus Prime alive in order to use the Matrix to reactivate Sentinel who in turn will open the space bridge in order to bring Cybertron to Earth and enslave humanity. No wait, screw the Cube, it turns out that the Transformers were made by some fleshy pink aliens who seeded other planets with Cybertoni---, Transformium, in order to create more Transformers. No wait, screw that. It turns out that the Transformers were made by a hot metallic yet mentally unhinged goddess called Quintessa and Earth is Unicron which she wants to kill. Wait, so would the Star Harvester have reactivated Unicron? Why didn't Unicron activate when Cybertron came within orbit? Why does Optimus Prime's personality keep flip-flopping? Does he have some kind of multiple personality disorder? I... I don't even... I... :eek:

[Magnus]

Critical reviews aren't necessarily an indicator of quality; they only show what a certain person subjectively thought of a movie. Likewise, critical aggregate scores only show what a small subset of people think of the movie. If a critic - or a bunch of critics - likes a movie, it doesn't mean any individual viewer will.

Movies are art, and art is subjective. The things that people rate movies on - writing, acting, set design, editing, cinematography, score, VFX - are all appraised subjectively. The idea that a movie is 'objectively' good or bad has become a pet peeve of mine.

People don't seem to know how Rotten Tomatoes works. I'm still trying to get my head around it myself, but a Tomatometer score is not an average score. The score is the percentage of reviewers who gave a movie a rating better than 3/5. It doesn't say what the reviewers' actual scores were. A movie can have an RT score above 90%, but many of those actual reviews could have been only 6/10. Likewise, an RT score of 30% could be composed largely of 5/10 reviews.


Live action TF continuity is a weird thing considering that they Bayformer films never much kept on continuity with each other. :o

The AllSpark Cube is the source of all life on Cybertron. Megatron made an ancient deal with the Fallen and must kill Optimus Prime for the Fallen to rise again and use the Matrix to activate the Star Harvester. But he also made an ancient deal with Sentinel Prime where Megatron must keep Optimus Prime alive in order to use the Matrix to reactivate Sentinel who in turn will open the space bridge in order to bring Cybertron to Earth and enslave humanity. No wait, screw the Cube, it turns out that the Transformers were made by some fleshy pink aliens who seeded other planets with Cybertoni---, Transformium, in order to create more Transformers. No wait, screw that. It turns out that the Transformers were made by a hot metallic yet mentally unhinged goddess called Quintessa and Earth is Unicron which she wants to kill. Wait, so would the Star Harvester have reactivated Unicron? Why didn't Unicron activate when Cybertron came within orbit? Why does Optimus Prime's personality keep flip-flopping? Does he have some kind of multiple personality disorder? I... I don't even... I... :eek:

Seriously, continuity is nowhere near as bad as some people seem to think; then again, that's probably what happens when you write movies one at a time instead of having an overarching plan.

The 'Creators' aren't incompatible with the AllSpark - it's not inconceivable that they had a hand in creating the AllSpark. Quintessa could have been an ally or even a member of the Creators who had cybernetic enhancements; then again, the Guardian Knights called Quintessa 'the great deceiver', so take whatever she says with a grain of salt.

The deal with the Fallen isn't incompatible with the one with Sentinel Prime. Megatron made a deal with Sentinel to defect and come to an agreement to end the war. At this time, the AllSpark was still present and hadn't been lost yet. When it was lost, there was a need to recover it, and when that was no longer an option, the idea of the Harvester came into play. When that was no longer an option and it became clear that Sentinel Prime couple be brought back into play, Megatron changed plans again.

[GoktimusPrime]

Seriously, continuity is nowhere near as bad as some people seem to think; then again, that's probably what happens when you write movies one at a time instead of having an overarching plan.
Many stories are made without an overarching plan that doesn't create as massive a continuity headache as Bayformers. The MCU is unusual in that they sat down and formulated an overarching plan for their movies. Most people don't do that. The writers of Beast Wars made stuff up as they went along.

The 'Creators' aren't incompatible with the AllSpark - it's not inconceivable that they had a hand in creating the AllSpark. Quintessa could have been an ally or even a member of the Creators who had cybernetic enhancements; then again, the Guardian Knights called Quintessa 'the great deceiver', so take whatever she says with a grain of salt.
See... I think the fact that fans have to try and make excuses is a sign of weak story-telling. It's not up to us to fill in plot holes. These glaring holes just shouldn't exist.

The deal with the Fallen isn't incompatible with the one with Sentinel Prime. Megatron made a deal with Sentinel to defect and come to an agreement to end the war. At this time, the AllSpark was still present and hadn't been lost yet. When it was lost, there was a need to recover it, and when that was no longer an option, the idea of the Harvester came into play. When that was no longer an option and it became clear that Sentinel Prime couple be brought back into play, Megatron changed plans again.
Plan A: kill Optimus Prime to bring back the Fallen and use the Matrix to activate the Star Harvester
Plan B: manipulate Optimus Prime into using the Matrix to resurrect Sentinel Prime so that he can activate the Space Bridge

Plan B can only work if Plan A never happens or utterly fails. What if Plan A failed and Optimus Prime was never resurrected? (there are several ways I can imagine this happening) Plan B becomes utterly useless. After centuries of planning -- planting an army of Decepticons on the Moon. Getting the humans to go to the Moon and retrieve the Pillars. All that plotting for nothing. Oh yeah, there's an army of Decepticons on the freakin' Moon! Why did we never see them used before? :confused: Searching for Megatron and the Cube -- activate the army! Searching for the Matrix and needing to activate and defend the Harvester -- activate the army! I remember watching DOTM in cinemas, and in the scene where the Decepticons emerge on the lunar surface I heard a guy say something like, "There was an army of Decepticons just lying there this whole time?!"

It reminds me of the G1 cartoon continuity, but we know that that was because the writers didn't communicate with each other and that Sunbow never mandated an overarching canon. Plus it was just a kid's cartoon show, not a US$200 million per story series of Hollywood blockbusters. We saw the cartoon for free on TV vs having to pay for the price of a movie ticket. ;) But even then, we still laughed at the G1 cartoon's continuity flaws as kids anyway. :p :D

[DELTAprime]

If Bumblebee was releasing in a time that works better for me I'd go see it in the cinema. However, working retail there are two times of year I can't afford to take a day off. Christmas/BTS and Toy Sale. I'll probably see it on 4K UHD Blu-ray.

[SharkyMcShark]

I'll probably watch it at home release.

I liked TF07, and I didn't mind DOTM, but ROTF, AOE, and TLK were utter dogshit. This is likely to be a cinematic miss from me. I just don't have the confidence in the franchise at this point.

[Omega Supreme]

I took my boys to see this last night, without giving away anything I would say it is definitely worth a watch on the big screen, even more so if your a fan of Transformers. Besides all the cool robots it stars one of the greatest humanitarians alive today in John Cena, supporting this movie not only grows the Transformers franchise but also helps spread the influence of a truly good person.

[GoktimusPrime]

I liked TF07, and I didn't mind DOTM, but ROTF, AOE, and TLK were utter (canine excrement). This is likely to be a cinematic miss from me. I just don't have the confidence in the franchise at this point.
I've seen many reviews from people who hate Bayformers (especially the sequels) who had low expectations for Bumblebee but have walked away singing it praise. Here are some spoiler-free reviews from people who hated the other TF movies but have really enjoyed Bumblebee.
The Flick Pick (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81bUo7PH_Mw)
Chris Stuckman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcged3LJDCQ)
Jeremy Jahns (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijLt7FOqPV0)
I think it speaks volumes about the quality of this movie when the haters are singing it praise. I've said for years with Bayformers that the best way to silence your critics is to produce a good movie. This is what Knight has done. All we need now are people to actually go watch it! Otherwise if Paramount goes back to the same formula that we had for the Bayformer sequels then we'll have noone else to blame but ourselves.

Is Bumblebee a perfect movie? No. But movies don't need to be perfect, they just need to be good. This is something that the MCU has generally used to their success - they're not about creating perfect movies, they're just about producing good movies. And just for comparison, here is how we OzFormers have rated Bumblebee against the last three films (I couldn't find the review threads for TF07 or ROTF).
https://i.ibb.co/YbZdgDB/otcaratings.jpg

[griffin]

(I couldn't find the review threads for TF07 or ROTF).



We moved here in 2008, so there isn't a review topic for the 2007 movie.
The 2009 movie poll is here - http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=4721

[Raptormesh]

I am interested to watch but the thing in the way isn't really the movie itself but for the lack of will to go to the theatres. The last time was around three years ago.

Will find a way to watch this one though.

[GoktimusPrime]

Please do so soon as I'm noticing that a lot of cinemas have now cut down sessions. I checked half a dozen Event cinemas around me and only found TWO evening sessions. :(

[bowspearer]

Good news for now. tformers.com (https://tformers.com/the-bee-has-legs-bumblebee-the-movie-maintains-3-slot-with-only-5-drop-in-us-box-office-take/34594/news.html) has noted the following of the US Domestic Market:


Box Office Mojo reports that Bumblebee has made another $20 million in US box office revenue this weekend, dropping only 5.3% from its debut. That's relatively unusual for your average popcorn movie! Also worth noting is the fact that apparently the first-weekend box office numbers included the advance-screening numbers... which could possibly mean that the film made more money this weekend than last.

Box office positions are unchanged from last week. Aquaman is still at #1 with a 23.5% dropoff in revenue. Mary Poppins Returns has in fact gained 19% over last week - a noteworthy feat. Also displaying gains are Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse and The Mule in 4th and 5th respectively. Excepting Aquaman everything in the top five is doing even more remarkably than Bumblebee... but the fact that Bumblebee is slowly but steadily maintaining an audience is something that should be remarked on. And significant international debuts in China and Japan have yet to occur.

The new approach to Transformers films isn't setting the world on fire as some of us might have hoped, but it's too early to officially declare it a complete bomb.

1 1 Aquaman WB $51,550,000 -23.5% 4,125 - $12,497 $188,785,000 - 2
2 2 Mary Poppins Returns BV $28,019,000 +19.1% 4,090 - $6,851 $98,929,758 - 2
3 3 Bumblebee Par. $20,500,000 -5.3% 3,550 - $5,775 $66,778,020 $135 2
4 4 Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Sony $18,315,000 +11.2% 3,813 - $4,803 $103,643,730 $90 3
5 5 The Mule WB $11,780,000 +24.0% 2,787 +131 $4,227 $60,738,465 $50 3

In fact, Box Office Mojo (https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=transformers6.htm) has Bumblebee's worldwide gross at $157,178,020, with Australia not only accounting for $4,821,237 of that, but as it stands, the Opening Weekend accounts for only 43.2% of that, which is a very good sign.

All in all it looks like it will do quite well so far.

[bowspearer]

And now China has taken it to $298 million worldwide (https://variety.com/2019/film/news/box-office-bumblebee-defeats-aquaman-overseas-1203100302/?fbclid=IwAR3kEhtQvAaJlJL3FdL7F-i05xa2FE5P81lUrF_sW3X2DGIJ6c5JFmvoehI).

[DaptoDog]

Yep the opinions I am reading point to it doing very well in China at the moment, which should ensure it does $400m-$500m globally making it financially successful. This will hopefully ensure they make further Transformers movies in a similar style to Bumblebee.

[Sinnertwin]

How much would Bumblebee need to bring in to be considered a commercial success? 400 mil?
I'm aware that an Optimus Prime movie is being produced, but if Bumblebee only brings in 350m, would they scrap the Optimus movie?

[Ralph Wiggum]

Typically movies need to make roughly double just to break even, so with a budget of around 100-130 million, yeah anything towards $350 million would be considered successful. Ending at 400-500 million would be fantastic.

[Bladestorm]

My son and I finally got to see this yesterday as he was FINALLY well enough to leave the house.
Firstly, it was hard to find a session as it seems to now be limited to only a few theatres which was both surprising and disappointing. The theatre we went too wasn't a very nice one either which probably didn't help but as sessions were so limited we didn't have much choice.

The movie itself was good. That's a huge thing for me to say as y'all know Bumblebee is probably my least favourite Bayformers character and previous movies had progressively put me off Bumblebee completely. However, this movie has redeemed the character for me in some ways.
The movie was cute, a little slow in places but worth it for the epic scenes from Cybertron (among others). There was a bit of Baysplosion and a bit of homage to G1 which my son LOVED! When he saw one character in particular, despite the brevity of the scene he was absolutely delighted!
I liked the feel-good vibe and the soundtrack used was AWESOME! But I'm a kid of the '80s so I'm completely biased. ;)
There was enough bot vision to give Bumblebee depth of character and enough nods to both the Bayverse and G1 to keep any fan happy.
The human bot interaction complemented the story most of the time. The human characters were ok although some of their actions and props were too modern.

Honestly, if I could watch a movie length version of the Cybertron scene I would pay good money to watch just that over and over!

Given the mish-mash of the Bayverse movies, I went into this not expecting it to relate to any of the other movies and with an open mind thinking of it as its own entity. The movie isn't perfect. You could pick a million holes in the movie if you tried to directly match it into the Bay movieverse or any other existing Transformers universe but it also has enough to extrapolate your own theories of its inclusion to the Bay movie universe should you wish to postulate over it and unlike the last Transformers movie you can see there has been an effort to reflect on the history already laid down.

I hope it does well enough for more movies. Based on this the Transformers franchise deserves more movies. Giving each character their own moment to shine and then bringing them together for something big a la Avengers would be awesome but alas the Transformers fanbase numbers nor the general public knowledge of characters isn't strong enough to do this.

If you haven't seen it, go see it if you can. It is worth the entry price... and I haven't said that about a Transformers movie for a long long time...

[DaptoDog]

Typically movies need to make roughly double just to break even, so with a budget of around 100-130 million, yeah anything towards $350 million would be considered successful. Ending at 400-500 million would be fantastic.

Yes the rough rule of double budget is also my understanding. The thing that complicates things is the mix of global box office revenue. The more that's generated in the US the better because that's where the studio (eg Paramount) gets the highest cut of the takings. Whereas in China they receive a far smaller share of the revenue given the need to partner with local distributors etc.


How much would Bumblebee need to bring in to be considered a commercial success? 400 mil?
I'm aware that an Optimus Prime movie is being produced, but if Bumblebee only brings in 350m, would they scrap the Optimus movie?

I reckon they were banking on $400m plus and I think that's the minimum it will do. It's at $300m now and has just done $60m in China during the first weekend. Given it should typically do at least 2x the first weekend given industry norms, that means it should do at least another $60m in China. Add another $20m or so in the US plus some more in other overseas markets (hasn't opened in Japan yet) should see it easily get to the $400m mark.

I'd say we will at least get one more movie.

[GoktimusPrime]

Here's the thing... love or hate Bumblebee, the fact is that the Transformers film franchise needed something DIFFERENT. If Bayformers is more your thing, great, but there are 5 other movies for you to rewatch and enjoy. But it was just getting repetitive. Bumblebee is such a breath of fresh air. And I don't want future Transformers movies to necessarily repeat Bumblebee's plot either, cos we don't want that to get stale either.

The original Star Wars Trilogy didn't recycle the plot of A New Hope over and over again. The Empire Strikes Back was different from ANH and The Return of the Jedi was different from ANH and TESB. The important thing was that all 3 movies gave us good character-driven stories with characters that were relatable.

[TaZZerath]

Here's the thing... love or hate Bumblebee, the fact is that the Transformers film franchise needed something DIFFERENT. If Bayformers is more your thing, great, but there are 5 other movies for you to rewatch and enjoy. But it was just getting repetitive. Bumblebee is such a breath of fresh air. And I don't want future Transformers movies to necessarily repeat Bumblebee's plot either, cos we don't want that to get stale either.

EXACTLY this. Regardless of what comes forward, the feeling this movie gave me permanently etches it into my heart and mind as the 'go-to' live action transformers movie from here on in. It'll be really tough to beat for me and actually quite difficult (and in some cases, uncomfortable, i'm looking at YOU TLK) to watch the others. I'll still enjoy them, but for what they were, an attempt to bring life to my favourite little plastic transforming toys but never quite hitting the mark. I have a feeling i'll always enjoy Bumblebee for what it IS (note not past tense, and sorry if I've mucked up my English there Goktimus :) )

[BigTransformerTrev]

According to a couple of news stories yesterday theBee movie is approaching $300m and had a great China debut so is now outperforming Aquaman. It’s also left behind the newSpiderman and Mary Poppins flicks so I reckon it’s doing fine :)

[Tha_Phantom]

According to a couple of news stories yesterday theBee movie is approaching $300m and had a great China debut so is now outperforming Aquaman. It’s also left behind the newSpiderman and Mary Poppins flicks so I reckon it’s doing fine :)

There's still Japan to go as well, in March. :D

[DaptoDog]

Bumblebee has nice legs...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2019/01/09/box-office-bumblebee-tops-100m-and-its-the-leggiest-transformers-ever/#701fbe5b2774

[SMHFConvoy]

I just got back from watching Bumblebee, pretty solid movie, human leads actually have depth, growth and are not annoying.

Really hope Lindsay Ellis does a video essay comparing the 2007 movie to Bumblebee.

[Jetfire in the sky]

It’s also left behind the newSpiderman and Mary Poppins flicks so I reckon it’s doing fine :)

Probably not the highest bench mark out there, but still good news.

[klystron]

My daughter and I watched it for the second time yesterday. We both enjoyed it more than the first viewing. Very re-watchable (I'm sure there's a better term than this) movie that will have long-term appeal IMHO.

:D

[Jetfire in the sky]

My daughter and I watched it for the second time yesterday. We both enjoyed it more than the first viewing. Very re-watchable (I'm sure there's a better term than this) movie that will have long-term appeal IMHO.

:D

It has Goonies appeal :D

[Dan]

Bumblebee has nice legs...

Yes, I was admiring his robo-calves on my second viewing. :)

[Ralph Wiggum]

https://deadline.com/2019/01/bumblebee-crosses-400-million-worldwide-box-office-next-for-transformers-franchise-1202538143/

Just passed 400 million box office, so a solid critical AND financial success.

[griffin]

I think Michael Bay would still be happily boasting that the Bumblebee Movie hasn't overtaken any of his five TFs movies (https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=transformers.htm), both in America and in total... and is still only at about a third of the money he made on two of his.
400 million is a good amount, but still pales in comparison to 1.1 billion Bay raked in for TF2 and TF3.

[Sinnertwin]

Anyone done some kwik maffs on budget vs return percentages?
I think Bee may have it over Bay

[griffin]

Anyone done some kwik maffs on budget vs return percentages?
I think Bee may have it over Bay


It should be possible with the base production cost of each film, but the marketing budget of big blockbusters these days is often bigger than the cost of the movie, and even though the amount is rarely declared by the movie distributors, it now gets taken into account when determining profitability (TF6 had a production budget of 217million, but is said to have lost money, despite making 600million... and the cut taken by movie theatres wouldn't be that much).

[SharkyMcShark]

I've read in a few places that a good rule of thumb is that you take the production budget and multiply by three to get the true cost of getting the movie to cinema, including cinema cuts and marketing.