The Autobots are rolling out once again at the box office.
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” picked up $8.8 million at the domestic box office in Thursday previews. It’s revving up to battle last week’s No. 1 movie, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” in its opening weekend.
Paramount and Skydance’s “Rise of the Beasts” is looking to bring in $50 million to $60 million this weekend, but its box office wheels may get caught in the web of “Across the Spider-Verse,” which is aiming for $45 million to $55 million in its sophomore outing. Last week, Sony’s Spidey sequel opened with a massive $120 million.
The seventh entry in the long-running “Transformers” series, “Rise of the Beasts” is attempting to bounce back after the previous entry, the rebooted “Bumblebee” movie in 2018. The Hailee Steinfeld-led film earned $2.85 million in Thursday previews on its way to a franchise-low $21.6 million opening. Before that, 2017’s “Transformers: The Last Knight” had $8.1 million in previews and a $44.68 million opening weekend. That fact that “Rise of the Beasts” earned higher previews bodes well for it to reverse course of the franchise.
“Hamilton” and “In the Heights” star Anthony Ramos leads the cast of “Rise of the Beasts” along with Dominique Fishback, who starred in Prime Video’s TV series “Swarm” earlier this year. The new movie introduces the Maximals and Terrorcons, two ancient factions of Transformers that can turn into robotic animals. Fan-favorite Autobots Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) and Bumblebee are joined by newcomers Mirage (Pete Davidson), Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman), Airazor (Michelle Yeoh), Arcee (Liza Koshy) and more to defeat the evil Terrorcons, led by Peter Dinklage’s Scourge.
