10 Hollywood Blockbusters That Were Saved By The Overseas Box Office

Worldwide Box Office: $1.1 billion (77.8% Overseas)

In the U.S., Transformers: Age Of Extinction is the lowest-grossing of Michael Bay’s four Transformers films by a significant margin. In fact, the $245.4 million U.S. gross is not nearly enough to cover the movie's $210 million budget since studios net roughly half of U.S. grosses. However, Paramount did not even need the U.S. box office to make the film massively profitable because Transformers: Age Of Extinction grossed an enormous $858.6 million overseas.

$320 million came from China alone, nearly double what the previous Transformers movie made in that country. Part of the reason why it became such a massive hit in China was because popular Chinese actress Li Bingbing appeared in the film and parts of the movie were shot in China and Hong Kong. But its international success wasn’t limited to China.

Age Of Extinction was the number one film of 2014 in Russia ($45.2 million), Germany ($38.3 million), Malaysia ($13.5 million), Hong Kong ($12.7 million), Thailand ($9.6 million), and Singapore ($8.6 million), and performed strongly in South Korea ($43.3 million), Mexico ($33.5 million), the UK ($33.2 million), Brazil ($27.5 million), and Japan ($27.4 million).

Obviously there are plans for more Transformers sequels, and it’s likely that they will follow the model of Transformers: Age Of Extinction and attempt to woo international audiences more than U.S. moviegoers.