60.6 Million Reasons Michael Bay Will Continue To Make Movies

Despite inspiring film criticism to new metaphor heights in describing the depths to which mainstream Hollywood movies have plunged -- tossing out everything short of comparing it to "the subway tunnel rape scene in Irreversible, where Michael Bay's vision is the rapist, Monica Bellucci is us, and her violated rectum is the current state of American cinema" -- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has proven itself to be utterly review-proof, shattering Wednesday box office records by pulling in an astonishing, GNP-of-a-small-country-esque $60.6 million. (The last record-holder was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, whose $44.2 million seems but a blob of Hippogriff poop by comparison.)

The midnight screenings alone earned $16 million, putting it third behind The Dark Knight ($18.5 million) and Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith ($16.9 million). As Skids might say, "Daz be a 'hoooo lodda cheddah! Cans you ordah lunch? I can'z be readin duh orderin' papuh." Fallen is performing just as well overseas, grossing short of $20 milion and outpacing the first Transformers in Australian and Korean markets. It's expected to earn between $150 million and $170 million over the five-day weekend -- more than enough to ensure director Michael Bay will be given whatever financial resources he needs to mount a third, even more spectacularly headache-inducing installment tying up the 1270 loose-threads left dangling at sequel's end. [Variety]