“Transformers: The Last Knight” is looking very creaky as it lumbers towards its opening weekend.

The fifth film in the robots series picked up $8.1 million on Thursday, bringing its domestic gross to $23.7 million after two days of release. At this pace, “Transformers: The Last Knight” will just top $60 million in the the first five days of its release. That’s a dramatic slide from the $100 million that the most recent installment, “Transformers: Age of Extinction” racked up over its first three days of release when it hit theaters in 2014.

It’s also a sign that the long-running franchise, which kicked off a decade ago, may be showing its age. It joins the likes of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” and “Alien: Covenant” in the ranks of film series that are running out of steam this summer.

Like the previous films, this “Transformers” is directed by Michael Bay. It brings back “Age of Extinction” star Mark Wahlberg and pairs him with Anthony Hopkins. “The Last Knight” pits humans versus robots, with Wahlberg and Hopkins searching the Transformers’ secret history for clues to save the world. This being a Bay film, there’s a healthy amount of visual bombast.

The muted response is bad news for Paramount. The studio could use a hit after suffering a string of bombs such as “Ghost in the Shell” and “Baywatch.”

With domestic audiences cooling on the film, “The Last Knight” will lean heavily on foreign crowds. To that end, the film opens in 41 international markets beginning Friday. They include such heavy-hitting territories as China, the United Kingdom, Russia, Australia, Germany, and Korea.

All those action didn’t come cheap. The film carries a hefty $217 million price tag.