In the end, not even The Avengers could save the summer box office.
Astronomical receipts for the early May smash starring some of Marvel's biggest superheroes - which has become the third highest-grossing film of all time - weren't enough to prevent the summer box office from closing down roughly three per cent to $4.3 billion compared to the same period from May to Labour Day in 2011.
Attendance, meanwhile, tumbled about four per cent to 533 million, according to Hollywood.com, the lowest number in almost 20 years.
Not that there weren't hits. In addition to Avengers, which has grossed $620 million domestically and is still earning, Christopher Nolan's grim farewell to Gotham City, The Dark Knight Rises, has so far earned $431 million, while another costumed crime-fighter, The Amazing Spider-Man, has made $260 million.
But if there's a bigger picture for Hollywood coming out of the busiest moviegoing season, it's surely a split screen - on one side are the intermittent hits, on the other a long string of film flops.
Big-budget spectacles such as Battleship, the Tom Cruise-led musical Rock of Ages and the oddball historical horror-action movie Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter joined the remake of the sci-fi thriller Total Recall, the sequel The Expendables 2 and the reboot The Bourne Legacy in the heap of misfires.
Box-office watchers offered varying explanations for the bottoming out of the box office.
Some blamed the hugely popular Olympics telecast, which set viewing records.
Others cited the July 20 massacre during a Dark Knight screening near Denver. The shooting left 12 people dead and 58 wounded and, according to a survey by the consulting firm Screen Engine, left many uneasy about going into the movie theatre. At least one movie executive, however, said the fault lies with the movies themselves.
"You can't get away from what happened in Denver," said Jeff Goldstein, executive vice-president of distribution for Warner Bros. "But hanging your hat on the tragedy and saying, 'That's the problem with the end of the summer at the box office' isn't right. It comes down to the content."
Distributors were eager to move on, and were already looking ahead. "The tail end of the year is going to be superb," said Erik Lomis, president of theatrical distribution and home entertainment for the Weinstein Co.
