Box Office Report: Robots Versus Spiders

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | June 12, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | June 12, 2023 |

The Transformers franchise is back. Michael Bay has left behind the ceaseless carnage after five movies in this seemingly never-ending series, having passed the reins over to Steven Caple Jr. of Creed 2 fame. Enter Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Reviews were mixed, which is pretty standard for these movies, and while it was expected to open solidly, there was a tough battle for top of the box office thanks to the strong second-week numbers of last weekend’s victor, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. But the robots reigned supreme, with an opening of $60.5 million from 3,678 theatres.

But Across the Spider-Verse wasn’t far behind. Even with a 54.1% drop in grosses from its opening weekend, it still brought in an impressive $55.4 million. Reviews are great and there’s a lot of love for this series, both in live-action and animated form. In only two weeks, it’s earned $225.4 million domestically, which is a hair’s breadth behind The Little Mermaid. I feel like we can expect this one to stick around.

As always, nobody wanted to try and compete with a Transformers film, so we only got a few indie releases this weekend. Brian Cox’s drama Mending the Line earned $225,659 from 403 cinemas. The fabulously titled The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster brought in $50,000 from 56 locations. The documentary Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis), about the iconic album art design studio, grossed $10,011 from one cinema.

This coming week sees the release of the horror-comedy The Blackening and The Flash, a very normal superhero film not drenched in controversy or suspect PR strategies at all. Ezra who?

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.