Hollywood’s summer may have been tepid — movie theater attendance was the lowest in over a decade — but the big-budget, big-risk stretch delivered an unusually robust array of tea leaves for studios to read as they make decisions for the seasons ahead.  First, the numbers. Attendance from the first weekend in May through Labor Day is projected to total about 552 million, the lowest tally since 1997, when 540 million people turned up in the same period, according to Hollywood.com, which compiles box office data. Revenue for the period — which typically accounts for 40 percent of the industry’s annual ticket sales — totaled $4.35 billion, a 2 percent increase from last year.  Sharply higher prices for tickets across the board, but especially for 3-D presentations, drove the increase. The worry, as seen in poor results for recent 3-D releases like “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” is that theater chains and studios have overreached on pricing. “We suspect some consumers are choosing 2-D movies solely to reduce the cost of their moviegoing experience,” wrote Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, in an Aug. 23 research note.  So studios are starting to think more carefully about which titles make sense to release in 3-D and which do not. Part of the challenge in a post-“Avatar” Hollywood, however, is that presenting a film in 3-D is one way to build a release into a must-see event — a crucial part of movie marketing in the age of 50-inch flat-screen televisions.  Some studios were burned over the summer by pushing too hard to “eventize” movies. Walt Disney Studios, for instance, trumpeted May 28 in enormous red lettering on virtually every piece of advertising for “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.” The goal was to blast the film’s opening date into the minds of consumers, but instead the tactic drove expectations so high that “Prince” was quickly branded a bomb despite selling $330 million in tickets at the global box office.  “You can hype up a movie like crazy, but consumers are smart and can smell a con job,” said Phil Contrino, editor of BoxOffice.com. “It has to be substance over style.”  No one would accuse Mr. Nolan of soft-pedaling substance. His “Inception,” backed by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures, was the breakout blockbuster of the summer, racking up about $660 million in ticket sales. “Everybody looked at us and said, ‘Why are you releasing a movie this smart in the middle of July?’ ” said Dan Fellman, Warner’s president for distribution. “Guess what? The summer isn’t just for dopes.”  Stars received a sharply mixed reception, which has been the case lately. It was certainly a good summer for Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in “Inception” as an invader of people’s dreams. Also faring well were Angelina Jolie, who turned an old-fashioned spy caper (“Salt”) into a hit, and Adam Sandler, who powered an ensemble comedy (“Grown Ups”) into the stratosphere.  And Will Ferrell came back from the dead. After suffering the biggest flop of summer 2009 with “Land of the Lost,” Mr. Ferrell returned in August with “The Other Guys” and garnered the second-biggest opening of his career.  Flopping this summer were Nicolas Cage, whose “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” died on arrival, and Mr. Cera, whose quirky “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” won positive reviews but failed to draw a mainstream audience. Mr. Cera badly needed a hit: “Pilgrim” was his fifth big-screen dud in a row. Also disappointing were Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, who fizzled in the action comedy “Knight and Day,” and Zac Efron, whose weepy “Charlie St. Cloud” landed with a thud.  The No. 1 movie of the summer had no stars, at least on screen: “Toy Story 3” topped the North American box office with over $405 million and had a global total of over $1 billion. “Iron Man 2” was second, with $312 million ($622 million total), and “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” was third, with $298 million ($655 million total).  It was a quiet summer for specialty films, with no picture managing to cross over to a mainstream audience. “The Kids Are All Right” came the closest with about $19 million. (The threshold for a crossover hit is typically in the vicinity of $30 million.)  The art house market came alive over the weekend, however. With George Clooney starring, “The American,” released by Focus Features on Wednesday, was No. 1 in North America, with about $13 million for a total of $16.1 million.  “Takers” (Sony Pictures Entertainment) was second, with $11.5 million for a new total of $38 million. “Machete,” a grisly revenge thriller from 20th Century Fox, was third, with $11.3 million. “The Last Exorcism” (Lionsgate) was fourth, with $7.6 million for a new total of $32.3 million, while Drew Barrymore’s “Going the Distance” (Warner) disappointed with a fifth-place debut and $6.9 million.  “Going the Distance” continued an uncharacteristically soft summer for Warner. The success of “Inception” was counterbalanced by a disastrous result for “Jonah Hex,” which sold just $10.5 million in tickets and cooled off Megan Fox’s career. The critically reviled “Sex and the City 2” was also a substantial disappointment; ticket sales lagged behind the first installment by 30 percent.  Disney had a similar summer, with mistakes like “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “Step Up 3D” dragging down profit from blockbusters like “Toy Story 3” and “Iron Man 2.” Universal Pictures could empathize: “Despicable Me” was a runaway hit, selling over $237 million in tickets, but “Scott Pilgrim,” “Get Him to the Greek” and “Robin Hood” all misfired.  Of the major studios Fox had the worst summer. None of its titles cracked the Top 10, as “The A-Team,” “Marmaduke” and “Knight and Day” all went down in flames.  Paramount Pictures was the most successful by volume; for the summer its releases racked up over $770 million at the domestic box office. But the result is misleading because Paramount owned only two of its wide releases, “The Last Airbender” and “Dinner for Schmucks.” The others — “Shrek Forever After,” for instance — were distributed for a fee.  Sony, on the other hand, owned all of its wide releases and delivered hit after hit, albeit on levels lower than most of its rivals. Sony’s modestly budgeted remake of “The Karate Kid” was one of the summer’s biggest surprises, rocketing to $176 million in North America. Although “Eat Pray Love” was soft, the studio also scored with “Grown Ups,” “Salt” and “The Other Guys.”
Movie attendance was down, but some films â like âToy Story 3â and âInceptionâ â made out very, very well.