Box Office (06/29/11): With 60% sold in 3D, Transformers: Dark of the Moon nets $42.7m first day (including Tues-sneaks). It's looks like a $180m 6-day weekend.

Okay, so my arbitrary predictions stemming from yesterday's $13.5 million worth of advance-night and midnight screenings was off by about $10 million.  The third Transformers picture grossed $37.2 million on its first full day, which accounts for $8 million worth of midnight shows but not $5.5 million worth of 9pm advance screenings the evening before.  So the official 'first day' total for Transformers: Dark of the Moon is $42.7 million.  By itself, the $37.2 million number is the sixth-biggest Wednesday of all-time, and the biggest single day of 2011 so far.  That is about $24 million behind the $62 million opening day (with $16 million worth of midnight grosses) for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  And it is about $6 million ahead of the first day ($27.8 million opening Tuesday plus $8.8 million worth of advance-night sneaks) of the first Transformers back over this same long holiday in 2007.  The first Transformers had a six day opening weekend of sorts, opening on Monday at 8pm and plowing through the whole Fourth of July week with about $155 million in the can by the time Sunday night rolled around.  Dark of the Moon has a similar situation, opening on a Wednesday, but having that holiday Monday that Transformers apparently did not have (I say apparently because the Monday gross plummeted 55% from Sunday, which is unusual for a holiday Monday).  The film scored an A from Cinemascore, with 55% of the audience being under 25. It also played 62% male.  With audience satisfaction higher this time around (Revenge of the Fallen had a B+) and those IMAX (more in number than for Revenge of the Fallen) and 3D screens (which made up a whopping 60% of the tickets yesterday) factored in, we should see a similar long-weekend multiplier to the first Transformers (4.3x its opening 1.25 days).  So offhand, we're looking like a six-day weekend total of about $180 million.  Although Paramount would love to get it over the $183.6 million six-day mark, so as to become the third-biggest six-day total ever (behind Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with $214 million and The Dark Knight with $224 million).

Scott Mendelson