Transformers One is the latest entry in the venerable movie franchise based on Hasbro’s popular toys, and the first theatrical animated entry in decades. Transformers One has received positive reviews, but this isn’t translating into much wider attention. Due to a tepid opening weekend at the box office, it’s now questionable if the animated movie will become profitable. It’s currently made just around $40 million USD on a budget of $75 million, and while this isn’t entirely terrible, the movie’s long-term prospects aren’t great.
The reasons for Transformers One landing with such a thud at the box office are many, and they stem most from how the movie’s content has been marketed to audiences. Said consumers are likely tired and wary of the brand on the big screen, namely after several critical duds. Add in a less than prime release date, and it makes sense that Transformers One isn’t rolling out to major financial success.
Transformers One’s Marketing Did Not Target the Right Audience
Easily the biggest issue with Transformers One is the movie’s tone, namely in terms of how it was portrayed in trailers. Ever since the film’s first trailer dropped, many fans complained about how overly comedic and unnecessarily lighthearted everything was. The opening scene of the first trailer was essentially a joke between the Transformers that become Optimus Prime and Megatron, and this didn’t set the right stage for what fans should expect.
Subsequent previews of the movie doubled down on this tone, leaving older fans disappointed. In terms of the film being a “kids movie,” this defense was many times rebutted by the fact that the trailer for the original 1986 The Transformers: The Movie showcased how adventurous and action-packed everything was. Overall, there wasn’t a precedent for focusing so much on humor, namely when the movie itself isn’t nearly as overly comedic.
| Movie Title | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | IMDb | Budget | Box Office |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Transformers: The Movie (1986) | 62% | 43 | 8/10 | $5–6 million | $2.6–5.8 million |
| Transformers (2007) | 57% | 61 | 7/10 | $145–200 million | $709.7 million |
| Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | 20% | 35 | 6/10 | $200–210 million | $836.5 million |
| Transformers: Dark of the Moon | 35% | 42 | 6.2/10 | $195 million | $1.124 billion |
| Transformers: Age of Extinction | 18% | 32 | 5.6/10 | $210 million | $1.104 billion |
| Transformers: The Last Knight | 16% | 27 | 5.2/10 | $217–260 million | $605.4 million |
| Bumblebee | 90% | 66 | 6.7/10 | $102–135 million | $468 million |
| Transformers: Rise of the Beasts | 51% | 42 | 6/10 | $195–200 million | $439.2 million |
| Transformers One | 88% | 63 | 7.9/10 | $75 million | TBD |
It isn’t as if trying so desperately to target young children worked, as shown in the lack of overall interest in the movie. If anything, the film and its marketing should have been pitched to a slightly older audience. This could have given it a much stronger sense of “cool,” attracting young adults, their parents and their younger siblings. In trying to be so family friendly, the movie’s marketing only made the film seem generic and not compelling at all. Ultimately, it was a failed gambit to garner a younger audience that didn’t seem to care at all. Even the positive reviews didn’t help, which spoke to another issue with the film.