will it even make it to Last Knight box office?

looks like Bumblebee and Poppins going bomb - both looking like low 20s million openings

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2018/12/27/bumblebee-transformers-box-office-aquaman-mary-poppins-spider-man/#6b4d0d5c6fe2

Interesting article 3 points on why it failed at the box office. Especially the 3rd point of it not being the traditional Bay offering

The third (and biggest?) issue in play may just be the skewed irony of making a Transformers movie that goes out of its way to not be like the other Transformers movies. Yes, yes, we all talk about the Michael Bay movies as if they are the nadir of blockbuster cinema, but A) they clearly had their fans and B) they were the biggest, in terms of scale and size, super-duper blockbusters around. To a certain extent, the sheer gonzo chutzpah was part of their appeal and what made them stand out even alongside MCU movies, Pirates of the Caribbean adventures and Harry Potter flicks. Yes, the obnoxious human characters, the rude-and-crude robots, the glistening yellow cinematography and the massive robot smackdowns were a big part of the franchise’s appeal.

What if the success of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies was rooted in the global appeal of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies, as opposed to an inherent interest in the mere idea of a Transformers movie? If so, then a smaller-scale and more conventional nostalgia-fest, one that combines nostalgia for grounded IP adaptations with nostalgia for kid-friendly fare like The Iron Giant or E.T., may be a case of removing much of audiences specifically liked about that specific franchise. Yes, Transformers: The Last Knight fell 40% from its $1 billion+ predecessors (which may just prove that audiences grew tired of them), but these films were still sold as being the biggest of the big when it came to super-duper action fantasy spectacle. It’s not like you could see a robot riding a dinosaur in an MCU movie or a Star Wars sequel.

Bumblebee was initially green-lit as a spin-off back when everyone thought Transformers 5 would be another super-duper smash. But in its new role as a franchise savior, it may be a case of trying to save a franchise by taking away much of what made the franchise popular in the first place. Batman Begins and Casino Royale were comparatively buttoned-down affairs, but they still offered core franchise tropes for fans. As good as Bumblebee is, and it’s a pretty solid coming-of-age adventure fantasy, it’s still a smaller, more “conventional” and more kid-friendly prequel in a franchise known for being bigger than big, gloriously over-the-top and just a little dangerous for its pint-sized audiences. Bumblebee's soft (thus far) domestic box office may be proof that, yes, audiences really did like those Transformers movies until they didn't.