Assailed by scolding reviews of Michael Bay’s longest, most incoherent playground tantrum yet, audiences gave Transformers: Age Of Extinction the biggest opening of the year so far—taking a populist stand, like the heroes of the movie, for the rights of giant robots, against authoritarians who would seek to banish them just because they’re loud and exhausting. In this call for the people’s freedom to be crushed, physically and spiritually, by enormous machines, America was joined by China: Transformers may have taken in $100 million here, but the real news was its $90 million draw in Chinese theaters, which makes it the biggest ever for a foreign movie—and only days away from matching the all-time record-setting, $106 million first week of Stephen Chow’s Journey To The West: Conquering The Demons. The production made many overtures to China—shooting locally, casting Chinese actors through a reality show, inviting residents to come swing appliances at Michael Bay—and it obviously paid off.
All told, Transformers’ success in China and other foreign nations, where the language barrier allows for Mark Wahlberg to put on glasses and be a scientist, led to a global box office total of more than $300 million. Box Office Mojo speculates that Age Of Extinction is now well on its way to a final worldwide haul of $1 billion—even if its U.S. opening is about $8 million down from Revenge Of The Fallen. On the back of a green light for Pacific Rim 2, some are now calling Age Of Extinction a turning point for Hollywood making movies with China in mind, a trend toward globalization that promises plenty of blockbusters to come where important plot points just happen to be found in lucrative Asian markets.