Where did all the money even go???

Tranformers was 2007. Inflation has taken its toll six years later. I also think people underestimate how much money set pieces and location shooting cost. Not to mention the city carnage in this movie was much wider than in the first Transformers which had a finale that largely took place in a single street. (Although it was hard to tell since the camera angles and busy designs were awful...)

It's also one thing to render a robot, the texture is much sleeker and the colouring is pretty easy to add on that. With organic, giant beasts, texture takes a lot more effort, and as a result people want more money for their effort. 

but on the flip-side, I used a lot of inflation calculators to check, 100 million in 2007 was worth about 115 million now. 

I remember reading somewhere that they were originally gonna leave out the scene where the two MUTOs meet for the first time because it was "Too expensive".  Also, if you check on IMDB or watch the credits, the list of people working on digital effects is probably more than 300 people, at least.  There are also a lot of effects that were probably very painstaking to work on, as nerdybandgeeks said, with other things like rendering all of those plants on those buildings near the beginning and rendering through smoke in the scenes.  They also did build a 400 foot long replica section of the golden gate bridge.

But, to be fair, I get your point, the Transformers movies have probably 2-3 times as much screen time for their CGI characters as Godzilla did.  We did get many shots of the MUTOs, like in the forests of Hawaii, that probably took some money.

It reminds me of an interview Gareth was in. He said that he had about half of the VFX shots, but the digital effects replied "Gareth, your shots are twice as long, that's even worse!"

Like PANTHALASSAN said, the movie had a lot more effects than you would think, just because the Big Guy didn't get a ton of screentime, the MUTO's on the other hand, where in the movie constantly. People tend to forget that there were three monsters in the moive. Between them, they take up a lot of film. Plus you have the overall quality of the effects, which in my opinion, where top notch. 

Well everyone above already said what I was going to say, so...

First of all-- the first transformers movie was awful and had almost as little action as Godzilla.

The transformer movies, despite popular opinion, are slowly getting better-- they still suck.

Secondly, I agree with your point though-- the movie had a huge budget and barely any monster action.

So my theory is the budget went into filming everywhere. They did film in like a butt-load of places. So yeah, that is where it went. 

The monsters probably didn't even take most of the VFX shots, a lot of the buildings and helicopter shots, caves, nuclear plant aftermath and muto contaiment were CGI.

plus, transformers would be a lot easier to animate, you don't have the skin stretching and they could cheat with all the human like animations because robots move a lot stiffer then a living breathing biological mass.

DRAGONLORD TEVIN - I'm of the opinion that the film's budget was spent on making its overall "looK" and atmosphere. There was a great deal going on in many scenes with regards to imagery - small things here and there steadily adding up to a very large bill! :)

Despsite what Akagi's decree on the subject the Transformers series is actually very good.

Anyways, Dragonlord I'm not sure where you're getting the figure $100 million as the budget for the original Transformers. boxofficemojo, imdb and wikipedia all have the budget listed as $150 million in 2007 with inflation is $172 million today. More than Godzilla '14

Woah I swear I saw Transformers having a $100 million budget, but I guess I saw a mistake. 

But alright, thanks everyone for the answers, I never really looked up myself on how expensive Kaiju cgi would be lol.

And also Akagi, I think the Transformer films are getting worst lol I honestly don't even think about Age of Extinction anymore after watching it on Friday, it's just a movie to watch when you have absolutely NOTHING to do lol.

Apparently of all films to compare from the Transformer franchise, you took the 2007 version... Why not take the last 3 for comparison? :)

To be fair, I thought the Transformer franchise is doing a great job, as far as making history at the box-office and money is concerned, which is ultimately what movie studios crave. Notice the production budget for each Transformer episode gets lower along the way, but the box-office returns (I have to admit) is nothing short of Phenomenal.

Let's see: (Production costs w/o marketing)

Revenge of the fallen: $200m (Returns: $1.2 Billion)

Dark of the Moon: $175m (Returns: $1.5 Billion)

Age of Extinction: $165m (Estimated returns: Sky high?)

Just for info, Age of Extinction didn't cost $210m to make which is not updated info btw - it's $165 million as revealed by Michael Bay. And if you have caught the latest movie, you will know $165 million is so much more bang for the buck and almost non-stop 2hrs 45 minutes of action and sequences compared to the 'limited' screen-time we actually get to see the main antagonists of Godzilla 2014.

At this point, I do wonder if the $160 million was well-spent. Hmm.

Oh yes by the way just for comparison and an update on the box-office, Transformers has made over $400 Million ($100m in the US, $301m worldwide) in just 3 days alone of debut and has decimated the China box-office.

Comparatively, Godzilla on its 43rd day debut still struggles at $197 million domestically with only 750 screens in the US left showing the movie. In the Chinese market though, Godzilla is hovering around $75 million, there's still no indication if Godzilla could match the $114 million earned by Pacific Rim in China. So the latest worldwide tally now stands at $291 million, bringing the combined total sales to $488 million. When I compare G14's $488 million to Age of Extinction's $400 million reached in just 3 days, the Transformers franchise is a massive Juggernaut.

Why? Dun ask me why, ask the audiences. 

I'm not entirely sure why this became a box office comparison to Transformers, but yes, the Transformers' franchise success is impressive. I think comparing the fourth film of an established franchise to the first of a brand new one is a little premature, but yes. By all means Transformers squashes Godzilla at the box office.

For the record, however, the final budget for the fourth Transformers is $210 million. The $165 million figure was the initial budget based on when it was supposed to be the "smallest movie" of the franchise during pre-production and into shooting. Obviously, Bay, and others, changed minds.