Transformers: Age of Extinction has topped the North American box office and scored the biggest opening weekend of the year so far.<\/p>\n
The fourth instalment in Michael Bay’s franchise took $100m (\u00a358.8m) despite generally poor reviews from critics.<\/p>\n
It also added another $201.3m (\u00a3118.2m) from 37 international territories, including $90m (\u00a352.9m) in China alone.<\/p>\n
The film stars Mark Wahlberg as a mechanic who helps the shape-shifting Autobots fight a new enemy.<\/p>\n
Made for a reported $200m (\u00a3117.5m), Age of Extinction met industry predictions for its opening weekend.<\/p>\n
It topped Dark of the Moon, the third film in the series, which took in $97.9m (\u00a357.5m) in its opening weekend in 2011, but failed to eclipse the $108.9m (\u00a364m) debut of the second film, Revenge of the Fallen.<\/p>\n
It is expected to secure a strong second week of release, coinciding with the 4 July US holiday weekend.<\/p>\n
“I think putting Mark Wahlberg front and centre accomplished what we wanted to do, and that’s re-energise the franchise,” Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore said.<\/p>\n
“He appeals to audiences, both critically and as an action star.”<\/p>\n
The three previous Transformer outings starring Shia LeBeouf as a teenager who befriends robot Optimus Prime, generated nearly $2.7bn (\u00a31.6bn) worldwide.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere on the chart, 22 Jump Street held firm at number two with $15.4m (\u00a39m), with animation How To Train Your Dragon 2 at three with $13.1m (\u00a37.7m) in box office takings.<\/p>\n
Last week’s chart topper, Kevin Hart comedy Think Like a Man Too, fell to four with $10.4m (\u00a36.1m).<\/p>\n
Maleficent – Disney’s take on Sleeping Beauty starring Angelina Jolie – was at five with $8.2m (\u00a34.8m), bringing its total domestic US gross to more than $201m (\u00a3118m) and its international haul to $586m (\u00a3344m).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Transformers: Age of Extinction has topped the North American box office and scored the biggest opening weekend of the year so far. The fourth instalment in Michael Bay’s franchise took $100m (\u00a358.8m) despite generally poor reviews from critics. It also added another $201.3m (\u00a3118.2m) from 37 international territories, including $90m (\u00a352.9m) in China alone. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":28604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[34,6],"class_list":["post-28596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-ghana-standards-authority","tag-togbe-afede"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}