Unicron comes in and consumes an entire planet filled with people. Screams, chomping sounds, fluid rushing around in his stomach that looks a lot like blood... man, it's brutal. Then five minutes later Megatron just murders half the Autobots cast on that ship.
I remember the 12-year-old me just blown away watching this in the theater.
Yeah the deaths were crazy even Ultra Magnus was supposed to be ripped apart by the Sweeps on Junkion but they thought that was crossing line so they changed it.
I'm not sure what exactly they were thinking besides replacing the old toys but they might have thought if the movie was a success a more mature animated movie market will open up just like how Anime did in Japan with films and OVA's (on video animation).
Of course that backfired because they did the most horrible thing in the movie...kill off Optimus Prime which was very shocking for the children and caused parents to send in complaints about the film.
It's not clear if that's the reason why it performed badly at theaters barely making it's budget money.
They probably just wanted to make kids infatuated with the new toys and then let the production team go nuts, which resulted in them making the Transformers cartoon they would want to make - something more mature because that appeals to the adult writers and other creatives.
As to why it didn't make money, who knows? If I'm guessing, you've got a kids cartoon that's basically a big toy commercial and you're trying to talk parents into seeing this in a theatre - that's a tough sell. Then if parents were complaining and it was too much for the age bracket who was watching the show, well, word of mouth would be bad. I can't imagine most reviewers gave top marks to a "kids' movie".
Who is this kid you are talking about?
In other words, PLEASE learn the correct place for the apostrophe, or you are just embarrassing yourself in a place that can be visited by anyone in the world.