Well, it was predicted as an event and we certainly got one. Transformers 3 shattered everyone's expectations and flew sky high this weekend as it managed to break numerous records. The breakdown is as follows:

Biggest non-holiday day (debatable...but Paramount is calling it as such...) - $773,188
Biggest opening all time - $5,126,924
4-day record (Thu-Sun only) - $4,302,758
5-day record (Wed-Sun) - $5,126,924
Highest single day gross ($1,286,235)
First movie to break 4m in 4 days
First movie to break 5m in 5 days
First movie to gross more than 1m on 3 consecutive days (Fri-Sun)
First movie to break 500,000 admissions opening weekend (Thu-Sun)
First movie to break 500,000 admissions in one weekend (Thu-Sun)

Highest Per Theater Average ever - $116,521 (from 44)

That is quite a bit more than Toy Story 3's 374,816 opening weekend. If you include Wednesday's admissions, Transformers is already up to 580,089. 4-day estimate should be around $4,172,853 while the 5-day estimate will get close to 5m ($4,946,041) actual is $5.2 million. If that estimate holds That actual is 81% better than Transformers 2 opening of 2.876m.

Another winner for Transformers this weekend was the 2D share. It climbed every single day up to 17% on Sunday. This is the first time 2D has been implemented with an event film. The success of 2D here leads me to believe that it could happen with Harry Potter in 2 weeks.

Tuesday saw Transformers 3 light up the box office with $63,853 in late-night and midnight shows.

On Wednesday, Transformers turned in a sizzling $709,335. Combine that with Tuesday's gross and you've got yourself the biggest non-holiday gross of all time. That is if you are Paramount. As a strict follower of box office, I count most of Tuesday's gross as part of Tuesday and not Wednesday due to many showings starting before 12 AM. The earliest started at 11:15 PM while the latest ones began at 11:30 PM. While there is no breakdown of late-nights and midnights available, from my naked eye, many theaters only showed Transformers on one screen before 12 which is enough for me to give Transformers 3's opening day an asterisk. Not to taint this weekend, however, we look forward...

Thursday saw Transformers prop up to $773,188 (est.). Thursday was inflated due to the Friday holiday giving people the chance to watch it on Thursday night.

Friday turned out to be Transformers 3's biggest day as it utilized the holiday to maximum effect and it cashed in with over $1.25m. After this weekend is in the history books, July 1 will go down as the biggest day of all time. Saturday and Sunday continued Transformers 3's record breaking weekend as it went down just 16% on Saturday and a scant 5% on Sunday.

The success of Transformers 3 wasn't so much because of the China effect but moreso to do with people spending more at the box office and the higher ticket prices. In the past 2 years, box office grosses have seen films enjoy huge success with Toy Story 3 raking in over 11.5m and Avatar finishing above 22.5m. Also, recent increases in ticket prices led this to Hong Kong's biggest opening weekend yet. A ticket to see Transformers in 3D costs $135 HK at the most expensive theatres while Pirates 4 was $130. Other 3D films that aren't as popular are $120. This year, it looks like we can add another 10m grosser to the list.

Beginning Of The Great Revival was raked over the coals (but not as much as others) by Transformers and saw its weekend admissions decline 53%. It had Friday to balance its somewhat huge drops for the other 3 days. A disturbing trend that happened for Revival was that it dropped harder with each day and Sunday turned out to be the ugliest as it fell 65% from its opening Sunday. A weekend drop of about 56% would give it around $125,000 for the 4-day long weekend.

Other films not on the admissions weekend chart had interesting rides. X-Men: First Class was sitting pretty in 4th on Thursday and Friday but fell 89% in admissions on Saturday and was unranked on Sunday. It simply got little to no showtimes as Transformers 3 continued to force theaters to screen more showings of the film. As X-Men has been showing for a few weeks, they chose to cut this over Revival. It looks like it will drop about 75% from last week to give it a total of about $54,000. Treasure Inn had the wackiest weekend as it fell 81% in admissions week-to-week on Thursday, fell 54% week-to-week on the holiday Friday, was unranked Saturday and managed to climb back into the top 5 on Sunday at #4 with a 75% drop. -75% looks bad but for it to lose showtimes this weekend (along with X-Men) and climb back into the top 4 is quite good. It will still drop over 80% for the weekend.

Transformers 3 OW admissions (4-day): 501,663

Stay tuned to http://www.worldofkj.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=58584&start=200 for actuals.