TRANSFORMERS SEQUEL BASHES BOX OFFICE

Ticket sales were good but far from spectacular for Tuesday’s late-night screenings of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, studio figures indicated. The movie earned $13.5 million, but only $5.5 million — 41 percent — from 3D screens, suggesting that, given premium pricing for 3D tickets, fewer than a third of moviegoers elected to see it in that format. (A conflicting report said that the $5.5 million came from 3D showings at 9:00 p.m. and $8.8 million from both 3D and 2D screenings at midnight.) Moreover, the result falls short of the midnight screenings for the last Transformers movie, Revenge of the Fallen in 2009, which took in $16 million without 3D premium pricing going for it. Paramount now says that it expects the movie to earn $160 million over the six-day holiday, which many industry analysts regard as a modest forecast, particularly given the fact that Fallen earned $215 million in its first six days. UPDATE: Daily Variety reported this morning (Thursday) that Transformers: Dark of the Moon earned $37.32 million on Wednesday, including $8 million from midnight screenings. That put it ahead of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides‘s $35 million to make it the biggest opening-day gross for any film this year. (That would put it far behind Fallen‘s $62.02 million debut.) The trade paper also reported that the film made $79.4 million overseas, including previews.