The domestic $69 million comes with a positive counterpoint, as TLK is dominating at number 1 over competitor releases (see here) - as opposed to, say Australia, where it opened against Cars 3 and Despicable Me 3 from the previous week, all three movies opening and competing for the younger audiences (and the kid alive in most TF fans, one assumes) as they coincide with school holidays.
The Last Knight is currently the highest opening instalment for the franchise in China, and the 4th best ever for a movie in general; the bigger hits were then seen in Korea, Russia, UK and Germany. The trend noticed so far is pretty much in line with Age of Extinction worldwide, with some expected Sunday dips in screen attendance and tickets, but a stronger opening. Read more about it here and below - and if you've seen the movie and want to talk spoilers, head here to join the discussion!
Launching in 41 offshore markets, Paramount’s Transformers: The Last Knight opened to $196.2M at the international box office. That’s a big number and is towards the higher end of the pre-weekend range. But it’s also a swing from where we saw this coming in yesterday — partially the result of an unexpected 31% drop in China from Saturday to Sunday. The debut FSS cume there is $123.4M (63% of the full offshore bow). Factoring in domestic, the global total on The Last Knight is $265.3M.
[...]
But after China debuted bigger than some had expected, it began to look like T5 was moving across the $200M mark abroad to defy expectations. Then that market proved to be the wild card we often term it. Although the film lost no Middle Kingdom screens between Saturday and Sunday, the drop was bigger than we’ve recently seen — and daily growth was also soft in other hubs contrary to typical patterns on a movie that was teed up for overseas, and China in particular. China currently reps 63% of the full overseas total — with just 25% of Middle Kingdom receipts flowing back to the studio. The film cost a reported $217M before P&A.
