comment #1

Walter Sobchak says ...

God help us.

comment #2

alynch says ...

****SIGH****

comment #3

vansmith says ...

i bet its not half bad for what it is. i saw 3 iron on dvd the other night, very interesting..

comment #4

The Winchester says ...

Oh my god, a big robot movie from Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg made an ass load of money on the fourth of July weekend. How could this happen?

comment #5

Ogami Itto says ...

Woo Hoo! Anything that pisses off Wells can't be entirely bad, so keep making lots of filthy lucre you Big Dumbass Robot movie.

comment #6

JaySmack says ...

Six day cume? Actually it's seven. They started taking tickets Monday night, remember?

Anyway, I'm glad this movie is finally through with it's first weekend, which is all it was good for. Let's start looking forward to Harry Potter and the return of decent, if not good, moviemaking. Because this Bay shit is hurting cinema and making a joke of movies in general.

Anyone care to guess how much lower this year's box office is compared to 2006 or 2004?

Interesting fact: The summer AFTER a Michael Bay flick always seems to have a higher box-office take, and better quality movies overall. Gee I wonder why.
Maybe when people realize Bay's summer shitstorm is finally gone -as are the drooling retards who like it- and that it's safe to go back to the theater, ticket sales shoot through the roof. Don't believe me Bay fans? I figured you morons wouldn't.

Compare 2001 (Pearl Harbor) to 2002 (Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl). 2003 (Bad Boys 2) to 2004, the highest-grossing summer season ever! 3.95 billion (Spidey 2, Shrek 2, Passion of the Christ, Fahrenheit 9-11, Ocean's 12, Van Helsing, I,Robot, etc.). Then 2005 (The Island) in which Bay single handedly destroyed the summer. 2006 (Pirates 2, Casino Royale, DaVinci Code, Night at the Museum, Cars etc).

Bay is box-office poison. He's not only bad for action movies, he's bad for cinema in general. The collective I.Q. of audiences dips 50 points when he makes a flim. Where else can you find people violently proclaiming how we NEED "stupid movies?"

I don't care if this turd makes a billion dollars this weekend, when studios get the stupid idea that audiences will pay for two hours of razzle-dazzle CGI, then what movie will be worth watching? The idiots cheering Transformers don't realize that come this time next month, when they're bitching and whining as usual that all the movies are shit, THEY are the ones responsible.

comment #7

The Winchester says ...

JaySmack, not exactly sure I agree with your logic here. First off, in 2003, Pirates was released, not 2002.

And how exactly did Bay single handedly destroy an entire summer? Especially after Star Wars had come and gone, Batman Begins, Fantastic Four, Madagascar, Mr. and Mrs Smith and Longest Yard made an assload of cash, and at the time of the Island's release, the top two movies (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Wedding Crashers) were well on their way to making $200 million each? How exactly did Bay ruin this?

I meanm, I get it. You don't like the guy, that's fine. Trash him all you want, but at the same time, I think you give him far too much credit.

comment #8

SeanSheer says ...

you know what folks? it's a fun flick. mindless, noisy, dumb. yet i still had a great time watching it. (keep in mind, i have hated every michael bay movie i've ever seen until now.)

why do you bay-haters all have your knickers in such a twist?

comment #9

James says ...

I'm with SeanSheer. Never liked anything Bay has done in the past and went to Transformers out of sheer nostalgia for the toys way back when.

But I really enjoyed it. For my money, it was much more of a Spielberg flick than a Bay flick. In particular, it had Spielberg's light sense of humor all over it, and only a couple of Bay's patented melodramatic slo-mo bits that ask you to take the ridiculous premise way too seriously. And here's the craziest thing of all, I totally respected the script and enjoyed all the various bit players (Tuturro and the well-traveled character actress who play Shia's mom were particularly good sports).

Good times.

comment #10

Rothchild says ...

JaySmack, you amaze me. Have fun being embarassed when Transformers is the highest grossing film of the year.

comment #11

D.Z. says ...

Rothchild: When it beats the threequels and 300, then we'll talk.

Also from http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20070708/118392336000.html

:
However, the overall domestic box office plunged. The top 12 movies took in $161.5 million, down 23 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" opened with what was then a record weekend of $135.6 million.

comment #12

Rothchild says ...

Retard, do you want to talk when it passes 300 by Thursday? 210 million? Are you kidding me? I get why your stupidity would lead you to believe that it may not pass Spider-Man 3 or Pirates. But 300?

comment #13

D.Z. says ...

Rothchild: 300 made four times its budget. I doubt that will happen with Transformers.

comment #14

Rothchild says ...

Fuck. You said the film wouldn't make 150 domestic. You flat-out-goddamn said it. Then you said it wouldn't make more money than 300. Now it will. But that doesn't matter. This is what happens when you get wireless access on the short bus. What are you even arguing here?

comment #15

D.Z. says ...

Roth: I said it'll be lucky to make $150 million domestic. The only reason it did was because it was given a six-day start. If it was released on a regular weekend, it'd have only made $90 million, and drop to $20 million by next weekend, and you know it.

comment #16

Rothchild says ...

You said 150 million total.

Reason #3,456 why D.Z. is retarded:

Thinking Transformers would have dropped 77% in its second weekend.

I'll play this game, because retard math is fun. You're saying the film would have bombed if it opened on a Friday? It's only going to make OVER 300 MILLION DOLLARS DOMESTIC because it opened on a Tuesday (with showings starting at 8 P.M. the night before)?

comment #17

D.Z. says ...

Roth: If you want to be technical, it's only gonna make $50-$100 million in profit max.

comment #18

Rothchild says ...

That's reason #3,457.

comment #19

alynch says ...

Rescue Dawn averaged $17,000 per screen, the highest of the weekend.....So there's that.

comment #20

JaySmack says ...

Rothschild, I'm not the one who'll be embarrassed. Dont' talk so much -PLEASE!- it'll be easier for you to eat all your words when you're proven wrong.
Bay fans are retarded inbread assholes. Who else would be dumb enough to say the Transformers cartoon was just a "thirty minute toy commericial," but that a movie with constant GM,Cadillac, Chevy logos, and a Mountain Dew machine that transforms into a robot is not?

Oh, and nice to see you gripe about one mistake (Pirates 1). Sorry if my memory isn't as great as yours -I'm going off the top of my head, I don't have my official Don Murphy talking points to refer to like you do. But I do remember how God-awful Bay's other films have been, do you?

The information is solid, and accurate and you can't deny that in the years Bay doesn't release a movie box-office and movie quality shoots up.

And as far as box-office goes. Waterworld cost 200 mil, and eventually made a profit, but you don't see them making a sequel do you? Hulk made 100 mil in three days, then immediately fell off. Studios have begun debuting films on a weekdays in order to artificially inflate first-week figures. Transformers has painted itself into a corner. The very mythology Bay maligned and called "stupid" he'll have to run to if he has any hope of making a sequel worth a shit. Of course you oculd give Bay the script for Romeo & Juliet and he'd still fuck it up.

This flick is hammered shit. Nice that it made back it's production costs, I figured there were enough brain-dead morons out there to score 100 mil. Standards have really dropped, along with audiences I.Q.'s. Remember how badly movies like Starship Troopers did ten years ago during the CGI-craze of the 90's? For a while there it seemed Hollywood had learned -story matters! Until 1998, and Armegeddon. Cinema never recovered.
And please tell me some of the "good" films of the summer of 2005.

comment #21

DavidF says ...

I'm with SeanShear and James.
If you want to talk about plot and script - yeah, it wasn't the strongest movie ever - but it was a fun, noisy movie with big robots kicking each other's asses. I liked it - sue me.

Also, I saw (rather by chance) a digital projection and didn't notice the inferior lighting Wells was going on about. In fact, I thought it was pretty restrained for a Bay movie with the camera/editing work moving at a normal speed when the action scenes weren't going on.

The robots looked riddiculously real and all that was enough to make me smile. (The opening shot of Revenge of the Sith might be the last time I was so in awe of a visual.) People should just relax - this ain't Saw IX. Just a fun popcorn movie and it was perfect for Bay.

comment #22

DavidF says ...

I'm with SeanShear and James.
If you want to talk about plot and script - yeah, it wasn't the strongest movie ever - but it was a fun, noisy movie with big robots kicking each other's asses. I liked it - sue me.

Also, I saw (rather by chance) a digital projection and didn't notice the inferior lighting Wells was going on about. In fact, I thought it was pretty restrained for a Bay movie with the camera/editing work moving at a normal speed when the action scenes weren't going on.

The robots looked riddiculously real and all that was enough to make me smile. (The opening shot of Revenge of the Sith might be the last time I was so in awe of a visual.) People should just relax - this ain't Saw IX. Just a fun popcorn movie and it was perfect for Bay.

comment #23

DavidF says ...

I only posted once so I dunno why that printed twice - sorry.

Since I'm back, apologizing, can I just say that this thread has some of the best DZ stuff EVER!!!

I love his dodging all over the place! I love his theory that Transformers only made so much money because of the day of the week it opened, as if this was some last minute change he was unable to figure into his complex formulations.

Dude - why don't you pretend you're right about every other thing but admit that you screwed the pooch on this one.

DZ has been slapped around pretty well on these boards but I don't think I've seen him be proven so OBVIOUSLY wrong and still try to weasel around it. If Rothchild comes back with another post I think DZ will be saying something like, "I said it would make $150 million but that still pales in comparison to what GW Bush is spending on the war on Iraq and it's nothing compared to how much Halliburton has made on its war contracts."

comment #24

D.Z. says ...

David: I might have underestimated its total, but it's still going to be forgotten by next week even more than Shrek 3 and Spider-Man 3. Even Dreamworks admits it's a fanboy movie; and the chicks they couldn't win over are gonna be catchin' Potter.

comment #25

DavidF says ...

No, DZ. Be a man. There is no MIGHT.
You DID undersestimate it's total. Admitting this will be a big step for you. I can feel it.

At such time as it is 'forgotten' we can come back and have another discussion. But you got the numbers wrong.
I didn't see Shrek but Transformers was better than Spidey. It ain't gonna be part of the zeitgeist (except to the extent that the Transformers already are) but it was a fun (and financially succesful) summer movie. Serenity was a fanboy movie. This one went a bit beyond that.

It's not the first summer movie to open huge and then fade (if that ends up being the case) and it won't be the last. Potter will get bumped by The Simpsons and on and on it goes.
In the meantime:
You didn't think it would make $150 mil. It did.
Here endeth the lesson.

comment #26

D.Z. says ...

"but it was a fun (and financially succesful) summer movie"

Fun is subjective. And for it to be financially successful, it'd have to make $500 million.

"You didn't think it would make $150 mil. It did."

I didn't say it wouldn't, just that it would have to be fortunate to do so.

comment #27

Rothchild says ...

They won over the chicks. Do your homework, douche.

And JaySmack. Transformers (the cartoon) had a convoluted and borderline retarded mythology. I loved it growing up, too. And comparing this to Hulk (a film I enjoy, but a mega budget film for the arthouse crowd nonetheless) is stupid, stupid, stupid.

I'm going to stay off the internet for a year when my movie comes out.

comment #28

christian says ...

what's it called so we know?

comment #29

D.Z. says ...

Rothchild: "They won over the chicks. Do your homework, douche."

Um, no they didn't. Dreamworks openly stated that they regretted not being able to attract older women.

comment #30

Rothchild says ...

There's a small chance I may actually hate you.

comment #31

xiayun says ...

Only a tiny -13.8% drop on Sunday to push the weekend total to over $70m. Still A- at Yahoo with over 30,000 votes and 4th all-time. The male/female split is 50/50, and over/under 25 crowd is also 50/50, so all signs are pointing pretty good legs for the film, definitely going to be better than May's big three. $300m looks more and more likely by the day. And already close to $100m outside U.S. with all the big territories still to come (especially Japan).