[By Justin Slick, About.com Guide]

The Wrap reported early today that the global cumulative box office receipts for Transformers: Dark of the Moon are expected to surpass $400 million by the end of the July 4th holiday.  Despite a significant falloff in domestic ticket sales from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, overseas audiences came out in droves, making the latest robot flick the third largest worldwide opening in box office history.

That’s all well and good for Michael Bay and company, but read a little further and you get to the truly interesting numbers.  The Wrap reports that over 60% of Dark of the Moon’s domestic take came from 3D ticket sales, and overseas the share soared to over 70%.

The numbers are a welcome sight—earlier this summer Pirates of the Caribbean 4 opened with the lowest 3D percentage for a film since Avatar lit up the box office a year and a half ago with a staggering 80% 3D ticket share.  While Transformers still falls significantly short of the Avatar’sbenchmark, a 60% share should be enough to silence naysayers who’ve been sounding the death knell of the format in the months since Pirates’underwhelming box office opening.

While it’s too early to tell whether the 3D format will be able to break from its cyclical past (there have been consistent rises and falls ever since 3D emerged in the 1950s), I think these numbers do show that given the right movie, people are still interested in seeing 3D films.  There’s no doubt the market has suffered from over-saturation, but I think we’ll see a correction in the next year or two as studios realize that not every—single—film needs to be 3d.

Handled properly, 3D is absolutely exhilarating—How to Train Your Dragon was probably one of the best cinema experiences of my life because of its 3D effects.  But Priest 3D? Come on now.