For those who keep a close eye on box office matters, this probably isn’t the most surprising news.
By the end of its U.S. run, 2014’s Transformers: Age of Extinction couldn’t top $250 million, but it’s one of only two movies in the series to make more than a billion dollars worldwide thanks to nearly 78 percent of the money coming from overseas markets.
Transformers: The Last Knight isn’t expected to make as much money in China as its predecessor (estimated to pull in $290 million versus Transformers 4’s $320 million), but that money should be more than enough to keep the series going for the foreseeable future.
While Michael Bay’s films about robots in disguise used to be major hits here in the United States, the franchise’s domestic status has been declining in recent years while the money from elsewhere has become much more significant.