Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Box Office Roars to $8.8 Million in Previews

By Aaron Perine

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has already roared to $8.8 million dollars after Thursday's domestic preview screenings. Paramount projects the latest entry of the beloved franchise to bring around $50 million at the box office this weekend. However, Optimus Prime and his Autobot allies will have to contend with animated juggernaut Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Early indications are good for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts as it's Thursday night total eclipses Transformers: The Last Knight's take back in 2017 ($8.1 million for that feature.) It will be interesting to see if a pandemic-era release can eclipse that entry's $44.68 million opening weekend.

Working in the sequel's favor is a strong Rotten Tomatoes score. In fact, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is the highest rated movie in the entire franchise on the review aggregator. That audience score sits at 88% which puts it ahead of the previous standard-bearer, 2007's Transformers. There have been some ups and some downs in that regard. But, fans really loved Bumblebee in 2018 and that seems to be inspiring some of the choices that filmmaker Steven Caple Jr. and his creative team make with this entry. Check out the trailer for yourself up above for a feel of what people have been raving about online.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Learned Lessons From Bumblebee

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2018's Bumblebee was the most-loved Transformers entry before Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Steven Caple Jr. obviously saw the comments about how much the fans loved this and all the strange elements of the Transformers mythos and worked hard to get it all in there. However, it's a delicate balance to bring in that kind of action and spectacle while still having that human emotion quality that characterizes the best Transformers stories.

"People really loved the heartfelt story of Bumblebee, but some of the core fan base wanted a more intense experience, so when we set out to make this movie, our goal was to combine heart and spectacle, and to make sure those two sides served each other well," producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura previously said in the media. "This film has the enormous scale that the Transformers films are known for and the intimacy of Bumblebee in terms of the relationships. It's just a really big experience in every way possible."

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Plays The Beast Wars Hits

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(Photo: Paramount)

Another big hook for this film is the presence of all that Beast Wars catnip for older Millennial fans. It's been a while since the cartoon series was on the air, but those viewers probably have little ones of their own around this time. Over the decades, the larger Transformers fanbase has warmed to the Maximals and their place in the larger lore of the franchise. Fans both new and old are going to enjoy what Optimus Primal is bringing to the table in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. 

Di Bonaventura also mentioned that the new movie introduces "a lot of new heroes and villains that are going to blow the minds of diehard fans.  It's chock full of robots we haven't seen in a movie before. That's one of the great things about Transformers: The lore is based on what happened back on Cybertron, which gives us a lot of leeway to explore the universe at large. So in this movie, we're bringing in the Maximals for the very first time."

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Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Rolling at The Box Office

Here's a description: "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which premieres on June 9th, is the seventh movie in the live-action Transformersfranchise. Inspired by the fan-favorite reboot of the series, the iconic Beast Wars, the movie is a globetrotting adventure set in the 1990s complete with an era-specific soundtrack. Peter Cullen returns to voice Optimus Prime in the new movie, appearing alongside other Autobots and Decepticons including Bumblebee and Pete Davidson as Mirage. Other factions from the Transformers franchise like the Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons will also appear, with Ron Perlman set to voice the gorilla-inspired Optimus Primal. Directed by Creed II's Steven Caple Jr. the film stars Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback on the human side with Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh voicing the Maximal Airazor."

Are you planning to see Transformers: Rise of the Beasts this weekend? Let us know down in the comments!

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