Transformers: One - New Animated Prequel coming September 20th, 2024 - New Toy Official Images!

[Steevy Maximus]

Despite a harsh second weekend drop (which is NOTHING compared to Joker’s 81.3% drop off!), TFOne’s starting to stabilize to a more gradual drop, adding three and a half million to bring its current total to $52.8 million. Assuming the film continues its softer slide and sticks around past the 10 week release cycle, the film has a decent chance of cracking $60-65 million.
Still noticeably less than the film’s modest $75 million budget.
It will be a flop, but maybe not a “forget it ever happened” flop like they ended up doing with Snake Eyes. Strong merchandise sales and streaming numbers can still make a difference here.

On some level, I can’t help but think this is a monkey’s paw situation: We finally get a REALLY good Transformers film that actually treats the brand’s mythology with legitimate respect…and it’s the worst performing film of the franchise. It’s like, the better the Transformers films get (and I’ll continue to defend Rise of the Beasts as a fun, if not deep, film. And I would argue it’s better than ANY of the Bay sequels), the less successful they get.

 

[lastmaximal]

We could really do with a slightly longer break, I think. The GI Joe life support teamup movie is disrupting that.

But Transformers in theaters needs to feel like an event again, now that the quality is largely there (Bee/ROTB) and the commitment to doing them well is stronger than ever with the product feeling like it too (One).

Hit pause and decide on what to do in the meantime with regard to two theatrical directions (or will they be unified? I don't know if they need to). If an animated sequel is possible, do that for like 2026. Keep the animated movies off Earth, focusing on Cybertronian war or space opera stuff.

In the meantime, plan out a trilogy of live-action "Transformers on Earth" reboot stories, and land the first film in 2027 for the 20th anniversary (good God, what even IS time).

(I don't know if a reboot of the reboot is needed, but as much fun as ROTB was, I don't really feel that much would be lost. But I do readily admit it might send the wrong message.)

(It may help if they commit to it being a reboot rather than being wishy-washy about it prequeling the older movies)

 

[Dekafox]

Well it did take Spider-Man two reboots to really stick around in a single timeline, so...

 

[Salt-Man Z]

Finally saw this over the weekend. A tangent on the topic of people just not going to movies as much anymore: the last movie we went to was Dune Part II last summer. About 75% through the film, the picture started to break up and we had to wait 20 minutes or so while they rebooted the equipment. Not a big problem, and there were only 2 other people in the theater, but they did give us all a free ticket to a future movie of our choice. It's been like 14 months, and we still have 4 free movie viewings that we haven't used. (We didn't use them to see TF:One because we were spending an AMC gift that I was given last year... just after the AMC down the street from our house closed.)

Anyway, good movie, not great. As I explained to my wife on the drive home, it was about as good as I could have hoped for, while still falling far short of what I would have wanted. The plot was fine, but the screenwriting didn't do anyone any favors: the speeches were awkward, a lot of the dialogue felt forced. The big emotional or thematic scenes never quite felt earned. The characters and humor were mostly fine. Hemsworth was the weakest link in the casting, though the script gave him almost nothing to work with. Everything just felt a little rushed overall. On the plus side, I loved the landscape of Cybertron, surface and interior. I wish we had seen more of the constantly-shifting nature of the planet, which we really only glimpsed during the mine collapse and the initial train ride to the surface. (I want to say that this film and Ruckley's IDW comics have been the only media to really shine a spotlight on Cybertron's natural beauty, which is an underrated aspect of the franchise.)

It would be a real shame if a franchise doesn't come out of this, and it winds up a half-forgotten standalone micro-continuity (that nevertheless had its own toyline.)

I also have to say: I was surprised to see both Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg credited as producers. At this point I have to imagine it's just something they have in their contracts with Paramount for any TF pictures that get made?

 

[Gizmoboy]

The last movie I saw in theaters before this one was Avengers: End Game. I just don't go to movies anymore.

 

[Superomegaprime]

The movie really only adds one thing to TF lore of serious note and that is the changing nature of Cybertron's surface as all other verisons its static, thou Beast Machines showed that there was once animals on Cybertron and TF Prime kind of used that idea a bit for the Predacons

 

[Undead Scottsman]

Mirage was hunting turbofoxes in his character bio back in 1984.

 

[Rhinox]

If I see one more "hot take" about how the box office for TF1 means Michael Bay should be brought back as director, I'm going to scream.
Of all the wrong ******* lessons to take. . . .

 

[Sabrblade]

If I see one more "hot take" about how the box office for TF1 means Michael Bay should be brought back as director, I'm going to scream.
Of all the wrong ******* lessons to take. . . .

Bay doesn't even want to come back as director. He wanted out as far back as DOTM.

 

[LordGigaIce]

Bay doesn't even want to come back as director. He wanted out as far back as DOTM.

Yeah. You can tell. Part of what makes AoE and TLK so bad is that they lack the energy that, for good and ill, '07, RotF and DotM had. Bay wouldn't come back if he was offered it.

 

[Sabrblade]

Yeah. You can tell. Part of what makes AoE and TLK so bad is that they lack the energy that, for good and ill, '07, RotF and DotM had. Bay wouldn't come back if he was offered it.

Unless the offer included a few dozen dump trucks of money being dumped on his front lawn for the umpteenth time.

 

[LordGigaIce]

Even then, we'd just get more stuff like AoE and TLK. And not to say that '07, RotF, and DotM were high art, but on the curved grading scale that is the Bayverse the three earlier entries are definitely better if only because there's a passion and energy behind them even if the end result wasn't that great. Take that away and you get AoE and TLK, which probably are more guilty than anything else for TF One's disappointing box office take.

 

[lastmaximal]

I wouldn't connect this movie's performance to those, even though those did indeed do a lot to sour people on the live-action movies. Too much has transpired in between to make those dots the ones to connect, including Transformers doing well at the box office and generally being well-received (still/again), an industry-challenging pandemic and the further entrenchment of streaming, economic shifts, and the lackluster marketing push for this movie.

 

[LordGigaIce]

I wouldn't connect this movie's performance to those, even though those did indeed do a lot to sour people on the live-action movies. Too much has transpired in between to make those dots the ones to connect, including Transformers doing well at the box office and generally being well-received (still/again), an industry-challenging pandemic and the further entrenchment of streaming, economic shifts, and the lackluster marketing push for this movie.

DotM made $1.24 billion. AoE made $1.104 billion. This was the first time a "modern" Transformers film had made less then the one before it (RotF had made more than '07, DotM had made more than RotF). Still, AoE passed the billion dollar mark so that "dip" probably wasn't too concerning. Then TLK made $605.4 million, the lowest take of any of the Bayverse films. Bumblebee made $468 million. RotB made $441.4 million. TFO is "up" to $111.5 million. Obviously that's not a final number, but I don't see it catching up to RotB. Hell, I don't see it hitting RotB's halfway mark.

Clearly AoE and TLK aren't the only culprits. A poor release date, bad marketing, and competition from The Wild Robot didn't help, but I can't help but see that every Transformers movie has made less then the one that came before it starting with AoE.
Boxoffice takes are often reflective of the last movie in a series. There was probably some fatigue towards the franchise after DotM, and domestic box office returns for AoE bare that out, but the Chinese market saved it. TLK, however, was the bottom falling out. And it's been a noticable decline in the boxoffice ever since.

None of this is reflective of quality. AoE and TLK are almost equally bad, but only TLK was considered a dissapointment. And while Bumblebee and RotB have their flaws, they both improve on the Bay films in a multitude of ways, yet they continue that downward trajectory started with AoE. And now TF One probably won't make its budget back (in theatres... it can still do it in home media/streaming).

Yes, a lot has changed, even in the past five years, to say nothing of the past ten when AoE came out (Jesus we're so old). Yes, the pandemic wrecked the industry and it hasn't fully recovered. But the Wild Robot was a dissapointment hampered by the movie industry's lingering COVID-related issues, and it kicked TFO's ass.

I look at that decline in boxoffice take and I can't help up see that AoE's dissapointing domestic take that had to be saved by China was the canary in the coalmine. And the TLK was the final straw for audiences. BB, RotB, and TFO are paying for their sins.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

The last movie I saw in theaters before this one was Avengers: End Game. I just don't go to movies anymore.

My wife and I still like to have a night out at them, but it usually needs to be something in VIP (this was an exception) due to having to sit there for a long time adversely affecting her.

That said, it also needs to be something we want to see... those seem fewer and further between now than before, though Deadpool & Wolverine, Transformers One, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice all got our attention...

...but we weren't able to make Deadpool & Wolverine because of all the stuff that was going on and happened around its release, and it was basically gone before we were able.

 

[lastmaximal]

My sense of time is still cooked. What was going on around then?

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

My American friends came to Japan for their holiday and they wanted to watch TF One in Japan but I dissuaded them as I couldn't guarantee that it was in English. Usually, animated films for kids are usually dubbed into Japanese, with no subtitled versions (with English audio) available. As the (badly designed) local cinema websites weren't able to be fully translated by Google (too many picture icons with text on them) and as all the cinemas were too far away, I recommended that they watch it back in the USA or wait for streaming.

We managed to see some TF One figures for sale in a real shop for the first time in Japan, in a modest corner of a Tokyo Toys r Us (amongst some Legacy and TF Earthspark figures) at the weekend, but we didn't buy anything as none of us were interested in the figures. There was absolutely no merch available though.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

My sense of time is still cooked. What was going on around then?

Funny you should ask -- I wrote a travel log of sorts detailing much of the big stuff that happened right after the movie came out.

Or if you want the abridged version that basically covers the timespan the movie was in theaters: (Content warning if you're sensitive about animals)

Spoiler

Went to Otakon a few days after it came out, had numerous delays, lost our luggage twice, went to Long Island Retro Gaming Expo the following weekend, came home, and spent several weeks watching my cat die, then having to pay for that and a new TV after our second of two this year broke.

 

[lastmaximal]

Ah, appreciate it. I was increasingly confused reading that because I thought by "stuff going on" you meant generally, like there were weather disturbances or idk a shooting or other threats in the area or something (hence my mention of my sense of time being cooked because I couldn't narrow down to what might have been going on -- we live in times that are too damn eventful). Makes more sense that it was personal stuff I had no way of knowing about to begin with.

But I have missed reading print/prose blogs, so that bit was entertaining (outside of losing Tango, which I relate to very much). And I learned a lot about a lot of corners of Mega Man (never got into Charged Up from what little I'd seen of it, but that Lab looks neat), and now I'm hungry and will have to make do with something else as we don't have Bojangle's in this part of the world.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Ah, appreciate it. I was increasingly confused reading that because I thought by "stuff going on" you meant generally, like there were weather disturbances or idk a shooting or other threats in the area or something (hence my mention of my sense of time being cooked because I couldn't narrow down to what might have been going on -- we live in times that are too damn eventful). Makes more sense that it was personal stuff I had no way of knowing about to begin with.

But I have missed reading print/prose blogs, so that bit was entertaining (outside of losing Tango, which I relate to very much). And I learned a lot about a lot of corners of Mega Man (never got into Charged Up from what little I'd seen of it, but that Lab looks neat), and now I'm hungry and will have to make do with something else as we don't have Bojangle's in this part of the world.

Hey, glad you enjoyed!

Thankfully, none of that other stuff happening around here... I don't know if I could handle it on top of everything else!

Sorry to make you hungry, though! (But Bojangles is great -- the biscuits are the best (regular, sandwich, and BoBerry), and the seasoned fries are great. And I'm really fond of the chicken and dirty rice, too!)

Oh... that probably doesn't help, does it?