Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen's Wednesday midnight opening broke box office records by $16 million with its first screenings, becoming the largest Wednesday midnight opening ever... and the third biggest midnight opening of all time.
The two films lying ahead of Michael Bay's giant robot sequel are 2005's Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith and last year's The Dark Knight, demonstrating that genre sequels are apparently the way to go get a big opening number at the box office. Transformers' haul was only $2.5 million below The Dark Knight's $18.5 million, and the two movies flip positions when it comes to IMAX screens - Transformers took that particular top spot with $1 million, against Dark Knight's previous record of $675,000.
Coming so soon after last weekend's stunning international debut, the question is now whether the movie will turn out to be critic- and word-of-mouth-proof, and if so, whether we're looking at the movie that's going to dominate the summer.
'Transformers' rakes in $16 million [Hollywood Reporter]