After $16 million worth of overnight showings,Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen scored the biggest Wednesday gross of any movie ever, with $60.6 million.  That beats the previous record, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’s $44.2 million, by quite a lot.

In fact, the gross is now the second-biggest opening of any day.  It came up short only to The Dark Knight’s 67.1 million Friday gross last year, and beat Spider-Man 3’s $59.8 million.

According to early estimates, Revenge of the Fallen followed it up with a $28 million Thursday gross, $3 million more than Paramount expected.  That puts it on track to make more than $185 million in its first five days.

The Dark Knight did $203.8 million in five days, so the record is still slightly out of reach, but the simple fact is that Revenge of the Fallen is a monster.  And it’s a good thing considering there hasn’t yet been a $300 million movie yet this summer.

Last year, before Batman hit, we had two — Iron Man and Indiana Jones.  This year, Wolverine hit $170, Terminator disappointed with $120, and Star Trek and Up are both hovering in the mid-$200s.  As successful as both of those two films are, now we can safely say that thanks to Transformers, the summer finally feels alive.