In accordance with previous estimations, Spider-Man: Homecoming is headed for an opening weekend in the region of $90m-$108 million, but it’s not looking too good for Transformers: The Last Knight.
Michael Bay’s fifth (and possibly final?) installment in the juggernaut series is booked in for a theatrical release on June 21st, and despite a five-day run at the box office, The Last Knight is reportedly set to scoop up $70 million, which would go down as the lowest opening in the franchise’s history. But as the figures for The Mummy, Alien: Covenant, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales attest, Hollywood tentpoles can live or die depending on their performance overseas, and the Transformers series has traditionally fared better within international markets than home turf. Will the same be true of The Last Knight?
By contrast, Spider-Man: Homecoming is tracking relatively well according to Deadline’s box office preview. Tickets for Jon Watts’ long-anticipated reboot are now on sale via Fandango and Movietickets.com, and the fact that Tom Holland’s Web-Head is being incorporated into the overarching Marvel Cinematic Universe – and, crucially, not Sony’s own Marvel Universe – will surely spur pre-release sales ahead of the film’s grand opening on July 7th.
Assuming Deadline’s projections hold true, an opening weekend in the vicinity of $100 million would put Homecoming comfortably ahead of both The Amazing Spider-Man and its forgettable sequel, which landed $62 million and $92 million, respectively. Sam Raimi’s bloated Spider-Man 3 still holds the crown for the highest entry in the series, though, after it pulled in $151 million exactly ten years ago. Now, it’s Tom Holland’s turn to shine.
Spider-Man: Homecoming arrives on July 7th, bringing with it a whole new trilogy of standalone Spidey movies. As for Transformers: The Last Knight, Bay’s final (?) entry into the blockbuster series is due to arrive on June 21st, and it remains to be seen if the movie’s less-than-stellar opening weekend has much of a bearing on Paramount’s planned franchise expansion, one which will bring about an 80s-set Bumblebee spinoff movie in 2018.