Getting a head start on most of the world, Transformers 3 will premiere tonight with shows beginning at 11:15 PM.

It will be the first of what is expected to be 3 contenders for the summer as Harry Potter 7-2 and Kung Fu Panda 2 will be released in July. When Transformers 2 was released in June 2009, it opened on a Wednesday to the tune of $510,000. Afterwards, on Thursday, it slid down to $420,000. Then for the weekend, it grossed $2,819,776 in 5 days.

This year, June 28 will be Transformers 3's unofficial first day and it could generate somewhere between $30,000-$50,000. Wednesday could see it go up to $500,000. Thursday will be heavily inflated due to the Friday holiday so it will go up. Friday will be its biggest day of the weekend. Saturday/Sunday will come in just a little bit above opening day's gross. All in all, $3,200,000 for the 5-day including previews sounds good.

Transformers 3 Full Breakdown

Tuesday (late night previews): $50,000
Wednesday: $500,000
Thursday: $650,000
Friday: $900,000
Saturday: $550,000
Sunday: $550,000

After any holiday, grosses will go down quite a bit due to demand being met. It's happened with a ton of other movies; this will be no different.

Other openers brave enough to enter toe-to-toe with Transformers 3 are arthouse flicks. Certified Copy will make its debut in 2 theaters and should gross around $12,000 for the holiday weekend. Night Market Hero should open with around $15,000.

Holdovers will get trampled over the new *and improved* competition. Already, Green Lantern is facing massive cuts. Super 8 and Pirates were almost completely wiped off the map this weekend and others like X-Men and Hangover 2 got their screens cut more than half. Beginning Of The Great Revival is the lucky survivor of this weekend's massacre as almost all screens will be retained.

Beginning Of The Great Revival will largely be unaffected due to its premise. Avoiding a 50% drop will be fairly hard to do given Transformers' monopolization of screens. 61% drop seems ok given that it will partially be saved thanks to the holiday.

Green Lantern faces direct competition and will comply with the trend set forth by previous superhero/comic book movies. Due to its poor word of mouth as well as the loss of screens, an 83% drop is possible even with the holiday.

X-Men: First Class is surviving better than Green Lantern and should be able to pass it this weekend. While Transformers is also direct competition, it has held up well in the face of other comic book movies and it has the screens to avoid a 70% drop. -66% should be achievable.

Treasure Inn won't find much to celebrate this weekend. Like Beginning Of The Great Revival, this is surviving quite well. it will lose about half of its theaters this weekend but the holiday will help. -64%

Hangover 2, like First Class, has done well enough to retain about half its screens. It's been getting larger drops as the weeks go by so a 69% drop could be its target for the weekend.

Super 8 is dead. A couple of theaters are still showing this on Thursday but most have cut it from their schedule so an 88% drop seems likely. 1.25m total is the ceiling.

Pirates also has a handful of theaters showing this but last weekend's surprise return to IMAX will give it a larger drop even with the holiday. -84% could happen. A total of about 5.8m is where it will stand. A pretty leggy run for what is supposed to be a frontloaded franchise.