LOS ANGELES -- Transformers: The Last Knight, the fifth installment in the blockbuster franchise from Michael Bay, may have topped the weekend, but all that robot-smashing has gotten a bit rusty at the box office.
The Paramount film, which opened June 21, took in about $68 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters over its "five-day weekend," placing it in the No. 1 spot ahead of returning titles Cars 3 and Wonder Woman.
That's just slightly below expectations and well behind its predecessor, Transformers: Age of Extinction, which opened with $100 million over three days in 2014 -- making The Last Knight the first movie in the franchise not to open to $100 million or more.
Despite its low opening, The Last Knight's hulking metal did help fend off its returning competitors.
Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot, took in about $25 million over the weekend, pushing the Warner Bros. film well past the $300 million mark in its fourth week in theaters. On the global scale, the movie's gross is just more than $652 million.
Meanwhile, Cars 3 fell to third place in its second weekend, grossing $24 million -- down 53 percent from its debut, which also marked a franchise low. The Disney/Pixar picture is just shy of crossing the $100 million mark.
Elsewhere, shark flick 47 Meters Down took in about $7 million, helping it place fourth for the weekend. Tom Cruise's The Mummy took the fifth spot with $6 million while the Tupac Shakur bio-pic All Eyez on Me garnered $5.8 million.
However, all that stainless steel wasn't enough to steal the real bright spots of the weekend box office: The Big Sick and The Beguiled.
Both films earned the best theater averages so far this year.
"These two movies tell the most powerful stories of the weekend, and the most positive box-office stories of the weekend," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore. "We're in the midst of a summer where it seems audiences are rejecting these big-budget franchise films, and smaller films, at least in their limited run, are creating a lot of enthusiasm."
The Big Sick, from Amazon Studios and Lionsgate, debuted in five theaters and brought in about $421,000 -- a per-screen average of $84,000.
The film, directed by Michael Showalter (Wet Hot American Summer), was a favorite among critics when it premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
The Beguiled, meanwhile, debuted in four theaters with $240,545 -- a per-theater average of $60,136. This remake -- of the 1971 Clint Eastwood gothic thriller -- directed by Sofia Coppola, stars Kirsten Dunst, Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell in the story about a group of women who take a wounded Union soldier into their Southern boarding school during the Civil War.
"These films aren't expensive, but yet they are filling theaters," Dergarabedian said. "We're always talking about how the international complement is so vital for all these big-budget blockbusters. But it's the North American box office that really fuels the continued viability of these specialized films. The Big Sick and The Beguiled are two examples of that."
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday (except Transformers, which opened June 21) followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by comScore:
Transformers: The Last Knight, Paramount, $44,680,073, 4,069 locations, $10,981 average, $68,475,562, one week.
Wonder Woman, Warner Bros., $24,906,310, 3,933 locations, $6,333 average, $318,111,468, four weeks.
Cars 3, Disney, $24,074,497, 4,256 locations, $5,657 average, $98,782,390, two weeks.
47 Meters Down, Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures, $7,088,262, 2,471 locations, $2,869 average, $23,914,194, two weeks.
The Mummy, Universal, $6,060,495, 2,980 locations, $2,034 average, $68,744,165, three weeks.
All Eyez on Me, Lionsgate, $5,806,975, 2,471 locations, $2,350 average, $38,599,294, two weeks.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Disney, $5,396,243, 2,453 locations, $2,200 average, $160,161,569, five weeks.
Rough Night, Columbia, $4,703,261, 3,162 locations, $1,487 average, $16,638,208, two weeks.
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, 20th Century Fox, $4,284,115, 2,328 locations, $1,840 average, $65,747,291, four weeks.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Disney, $3,023,042, 1,468 locations, $2,059 average, $380,236,369, eight weeks.
Beatriz at Dinner, Roadside Attractions, $1,759,977, 491 locations, $3,584 average, $2,953,757, three weeks.
The Book of Henry, Focus Features, $948,369, 646 locations, $1,468 average, $3,105,724, two weeks.
Tubelight, Yash Raj Films, $930,058, 338 locations, $2,752 average, $930,058, one week.
It Comes at Night, A24, $800,325, 819 locations, $977 average, $13,043,493, three weeks.
Baywatch, Paramount, $748,404, 480 locations, $1,559 average, $56,656,293, five weeks.
Paris Can Wait, Sony Pictures Classics, $572,743, 408 locations, $1,404 average, $4,153,090, seven weeks.
The Big Sick, Lionsgate, $421,577, 5 locations, $84,315 average, $421,577, one week.
Alien: Covenant, 20th Century Fox, $341,308, 294 locations, $1,161 average, $73,334,769, six seeks.
The Boss Baby, 20th Century Fox, $330,791, 241 locations, $1,373 average, $173,080,163, 13 weeks.
The Hero, The Orchard, $297,927, 81 locations, $3,678 average, $555,891, three weeks.
MovieStyle on 06/30/2017