We’re not really sure how, but over the past decade, Transformers has managed to become both one of the highest grossing franchises of all time and one of the most hated franchises of all time for film fans. With its convoluted storylines, exhausting action and visuals, and bloated runtimes, it’s become a series that’s been increasingly hard to stomach — and fans and critics haven’t been all too quiet about that fact.

With the writers’ room Paramount set up to help shepherd the next batch of films, our hopes were high that Transformers: The Last Knight could be the one to turn things around narratively. Nope. Critics were none too impressed with this latest entry, and neither were we. Yet despite the continued critical bashing, these films have remained incredibly successful at the box office. Will Transformers: The Last Knight finally be the film that proves that this franchise can’t remain critic-proof forever?

Variety is reporting that the latest film has taken in $15.7 million in its first day at the North American box office (it opened on Wednesday). This will presumably lead to a Wednesday-Sunday haul of around $65 million. To compare it to the last film, Age of Extinction, that movie took in around $100 million in a standard weekend (not Wednesday-Sunday). This is quite a drop from that movie, which went on to take in $1.1 billion worldwide. The performance is even lower than the modest studio projection of $70 million — not good. Given the budget of the film ($217 million), one would assume that this is a sure sign that the franchise is finally getting its due, right?

Not necessarily. We can’t pretend to think that this film planned on making a whole lot domestically. As has been the trend for some time, this film will be heavily dependent on the foreign box office, which has always been the driving force behind these movies. The last film, for instance, saw 77 percent of its box office haul from the foreign market, and given how low this one is starting out, we wouldn’t be surprised if this latest entry had something closer to 85 percent. But the big question is, “will the foreign market go for it?” That remains to be seen.

Do you think the foreign market will help keep this film afloat? Let us know in the comments below!

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SOURCE: Variety