"I don't understand movies!" a frustrated Sarah Mirk told me last night as she and I and a waited for an advance screening of Page One: Inside the New York Times to start. "Why do the good ones not make any money and the bad ones make tons of it?!"
Purely for the purpose of confusing Sarah even more, here's Transformers: Dark of the Moon by the (early) numbers:
Rotten Tomatoes, as of like 9:45 this a.m.:
Transformers 3 lit up 2011's biggest North American opening day, even though it's Wednesday, beating fellow 3D film Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 which had the year's highest gross on a Friday. The Michael Bay 3D actioner hit $37.3M Wednesday, which included the $8M from midnight screenings. Adding in Tuesday's pre-midnight 3D sneaks of $5.5M, the cume is now $42.8M. Paramount itself had put the range possible between $35M-$40M. IMAX accounted for $3.3M on 146 domestic sites and $1.7M internationally on 89 sites for a total $5.1M (including Tuesday and Wednesday cumes). Pirates 4 set the 2011 record by opening to $34.8M including midnight shows.Surprisingly considering the mixed reviews, audiences gave the pic an "A" CinemaScore. Exit polling showed that 62 percent [of] males gave it an "A-" and 38 percent of females an "A," while 55 percent under age 25 gave it an "A" and 45 percent [of those] over 25 an "A-."
Deadline also notes that Dark of the Moon is on its way to earning $200 million internationally within its first seven days of release.
