Another blockbuster, another record broken. What’s the big deal? Well, the biggest deal might be that film critics are wasting their time reviewing movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, because a billion trillion negative words written about the blockbuster sequel couldn’t have kept it from breaking the Wednesday opening record. Grossing $60.6 million over a day and two nights (the figure includes Tuesday’s midnight show tally of $16 million), Transformers 2 knocked Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix off the throne.

I haven’t heard of anyone liking the sequel, so it’s very possible that word of mouth will keep the movie from making too much more over the weekend. But then again, if another one of my weekends is completely rained out, I’ll probably go see the thing just to see how godawful it is (this Best Week Ever post makes me masochistically curious to see it). The first Transformers was a total bore, so I’d be happier with elements as ridiculously terrible as racially offensive robots and parachute farts, as long as there was something interesting going on.

The only thing keeping me from rounding up a large posse for a MST3K-inspired viewing is the idea that buying the tickets will only encourage Paramount and Michael Bay more (how about a group of us goes and buys Star Trek tickets and then sneak into Transformers? Paramount can’t complain, since they’ll still get the money, only for a better film).

Check out the film blogs’ response to the record breakage after the jump:
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• For the first time ever, TV commercials for new movies will be allowed to run during the Oscar telecast beginning with the 2009 ceremony. None of the nominees or movies related to the nominees (sequels, prequels, etc.) are permitted, nor are any movies opening before the last weekend in April. So, look for never-before-seen spots for the summer blockbusters, which could benefit next year’s ratings if fanboys who otherwise have no interest in the Academy Awards tune in just to see new footage from Transformers 2.
• In other Oscar news: 8 documentary shorts have been shortlisted.
• 16 years after offending Arabs with the animated feature Aladdin, Disney is now about to finance and produce its first film in Arabic — the Lebanese folk tale The Last of the Storytellers — as part of a new venture to make regionally geared movies in the Middle East. The Mouse House has also recently announced similar regional projects in Russia and India.
• Jamie Foxx will go vigilante, targeting the D.A. (Gerard Butler) who allowed his wife and child’s killer to go free, in the Frank Darabont-directed Law Abiding Citizen.
• For all you Netflix subscribers: if you don’t rent Blu-Ray discs, you apparently will need to make an adjustment to your account that says so; otherwise you will be charged a higher rate beginning in November. If you do rent Blu-Ray, you’re fine, though you now must pay the additional $1 per month for being so technologically advanced.

• Paramount will continue to distribute films produced by Marvel Studios, including 2010’s Thor, which Kenneth Branagh is now confirmed to be directing. The deal was expected, especially after Paramount’s handling of Iron Man. Also in the news: that film’s first sequel has been pushed back a week from April 30, 2010 to May 7, 2010. Iron Man 3 is also being planned, but hasn’t yet been given a planned release date.
• Meanwhile, Paramount and Dell have teamed up to offer Iron Man preloaded into newly purchased computers. For $20, the Iron Man add-on will include exclusive bonus footage. I can’t wait to see if there’s an “I’m a Marvel, I’m a DC” video related to this.
• Now that digital and 3-D projection systems are finally to receive an increase in numbers (see yesterday’s TR), short-attention Hollywood is already thinking about another moviegoing incentive: large-format projection. Thanks to the success of the Imax sequences in The Dark Knight, more and more filmmakers are shooting Imax segments for upcoming blockbusters, including Transformers 2, Iron Man 2 and Y: The Last Man. Hopefully this new trend will encourage someone to build a second Imax theatre for NYC. One screen per 20 million people is not cutting it.
• Very appropriate casting: actress Danielle Panabaker (Sky High), who graduated from high school and was valedictorian at age 14, and who got her bachelor’s at 19, will be the female lead in Prodigy, a sci-fi film about a prep school that creates geniuses through questionable means.

Warner Bros.’ surprise decision last week to move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from November to next July caused quite a stir. Fans were upset. Entertainment Weekly was embarrassed. The only people not bothered seemed to be the Twilight crowd, who benefited in the release date jumble when their anticipated adaptation moved up its opening to fill the vacancy.

But why did the studio suddenly push back its major fall tent pole? Especially after receiving such favorable buzz surrounding its recently unveiled teaser trailer? Warner’s official statement seemed little more than a “just because” stance. So, ever the skeptic and speculator, I’ve compiled this list of more likely excuses:

10. Equus - My first thought after hearing the news was that Harry Potter’s penis was the cause. And I guess I think like Roger Friedman, who is claiming it’s the truth. Of course, unlike Friedman, I don’t really believe there’s any relation between the date change and the fact that Radcliffe will still be appearing nude on Broadway through the fall movie season (Equus runs from September 25 to February 8). If anything, I think it’d help the release of Half-Blood — what vacationing family in NYC wouldn’t want to make it a double feature over Thanksgiving weekend? First watch your kid march in the Macy’s parade, then head over to the Broadhurst Theatre to see Potter’s wand, and finish up the day with a movie screening at the Ziegfeld. OK, so families are apparently more interested in the Billy Elliot musical. And according to a quote in the new EW, Potter fans might be able to hold out for a nude Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2.

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• Can that Mummy movie, an obvious, impersonal cash-in on the growing international market, perform competitively with The Dark Knight at the box office this weekend? Maybe! Can that Swing Vote movie, Kevin Costner’s labor of love which he paid for with his own money? Probably not!
• The release of Disney’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has been pushed back from June 2009 to Memorial Day 2010, ostensibly to allow more time for post-production, but maybe also to allow for more clever counter-programming against Transformers 2.
• Chris Millis has sold the film rights to his as-yet-unpublished novel God and California to Lionsgate. The book, which he’ll adapt himself, focuses on “an Iraq war vet and a disgraced Catholic priest who travel from Gotham to California in a pink 1975 El Dorado in a week, breaking the Ten Commandments one by one.”

• Studios are refusing to greenlight pictures that can’t be completed by June 30, the deadline for the Screen Actors Guild to settle on a new contract. But Michael Bay, for one, is not afraid of a silly little actor’s strike. Says the Transformers 2 director, who claims he currently has three screenwriters “in Michael Bay jail” hammering out a script: “If there is a strike, we shut down, but shutting down isn’t that big a deal.” Expect the AMPTP to use this as a bargaining tool––after all, why would they care about meeting the demands of human actors, when they can make a billion dollars off a self-professed captor of screenwriters and his imaginary robots?
• Peter Debruge goes out of his way to defend The Last Emperor on the occasion of its Criterion release, but still longs for the Criterion treatment of “better” Bertolucci: “Witnessing the care and respect they pay The Last Emperor (going so far as to indulge Storaro’s controversial reframing of the film’s aspect ratio from 2.35:1 to 2:1), it’s a shame Criterion didn’t handle restorations of either The Conformist or 1900 two of the director’s earlier epics that Paramount released from their vaults with minimal attention just over a year ago.”
• Disney is launching its own version of Rock Band, called Ultimate Band. We’re told it’ll feature “more family friendly gameplay and song selection,” but the examples offered of songs sure to be involved are by The White Stripes and The Who. So by “family friendly”, they mean it’s a game for Jason Bateman-in-Juno style reluctant hipster parents, and embittered ex-hipie grandparents? That actually sounds really great.