My wife had been dying to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean sequel and I had been dreading it, but I finally bit the bullet and we went last night. She said afterwards that she enjoyed it more than Pirates' first sequel, but I found my original fears to be quite well-deserved.

Upon leaving the theater, I was astounded at the line going around the side of the building to see Michael Bay's new Transformers movie. Nikke Finke writes that it's definitely transforming Paramount's bottom-line:

Paramount says PG-13 Transformers made $22.5 million Friday from 4,011 North American theaters and has a new cume of $107.4 million. Box office gurus tell me that, after a record breaking Fourth Of July week opening, the DreamWorks battle of the bots should haul in $60 million this weekend for a 6 1/2-day cume of $150 million. That's 50% more gross receipts than Paramount anticipated, and 20% more than box office gurus predicted.