31 Jul – According to industry sources, the gargantuan blockbuster "Transformers" is now the all-time No.1 movie in Malaysia in terms of highest ever total gross. Indications are that it will exceed the RM17 million mark this week itself, if it hasn't already. American news syndicate website boxofficemojo.com last reported on July 1 that the total gross at the Malaysian box office for record-holding "Spider-Man 3" was an estimated US $ 4,925,519 which roughly works out to RM 16.7 million. From the same source, the last reported total gross for "Transformers" was on July 22, coming in at an estimated US $ 4,635,553 (RM 15.7 million). Going by such figures, it is reasonably ascertainable that "Transformers" had already outperformed the web-slinging sequel to take the accolade of all-time No.1 movie in Malaysia.

Indeed, it can be observed that the blockbuster is still going strong at the cinemas with many of its popular weekend sessions filled to the bottom few rows in most major cineplexes. Many instances were reported where extra shows were added on an ad hoc basis to meet the demand from the restless queues. Not only did rival actioner "Die Hard 4.0" benefit little on the spillover from patrons who could not get tickets to "Transformers", it is also noted that much-awaited sequel "Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix", currently topping the last known weekly gross takings, did not make a significant change in turning the "Transformers" tide.

Cinema Online notes that a disproportionate number of "Transformers" fans have made the effort to watch it several times. Ardent fan James Chong claims to have watched it no less than 11 times. He said "For loyal followers, we have to watch it over and over again because it's simply amazing. For others, I guess they would at least want to watch it more than once because the action might have been so quick - they would like to see what they have missed the first time."

"Transformers" is still drawing robotic queues at cinemas nationwide.