US-China co-production Transformers: Age of Extinction, with its Hong Kong scenes and Chinese character, made more money in China than in the US
- Despite terrible reviews in America, Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), became the highest grossing movie yet in China, and took more than US$1 billion worldwide
- With its Hong Kong setting and role for Li Bingbing, the film was aimed squarely at the China market and the huge numbers of Chinese Transformers fans
For all its sound and fury, Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), the fourth film in Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise seemed more likely to follow trends than buck them. Like the 2007 original, it pits good robot aliens the Autobots against bad robot aliens the Decepticons, as an all-star cast gets caught in the middle. Also like the original, it made US$1 billion at the box office worldwide.
Unlike the original, however, most of that money came from China.
Mark Wahlberg plays unlikely inventor Cade Yeager (sample quote, “I’m an inventor!”) who finds Autobot leader Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) in an abandoned cinema. “The movies nowadays, that’s the trouble,” grumbles the proprietor, in what passes for a streak of self-awareness. “Sequels and remakes, bunch of c**p.”
Along with his teenage daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz), her rally driver boyfriend Shane (Jack Reynor), and billionaire industrialist Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci), Wahlberg helps Optimus Prime rally his CG pals.
Together they are thrust into a battle with the Decepticons that began in the Cretaceous period with the extinction of the dinosaurs, and takes them from Texas to Hong Kong to outer space, while rogue CIA operative Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammar) looks on rubbing his hands.