Early summer movies underperform at box office
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Moviegoers are not following the script written for them by the Hollywood studios. In a sign that big-budget sequels may be losing their allure, North American ticket sales for the first three big films of the lucrative summer season have not kept pace with their respective predecessors.
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April&#39;s rosy forecast that  Hollywood would reap a record $4 billion at the box office this  summer has been replaced by hopes of merely keeping pace with  2006 as Friday&#39;s midpoint of the season nears.
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LOS ANGELES  - As far as the box office  is concerned, summer's over.
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Since the box office hit rock bottom last weekend, there's no place to go but up. And two films targeting very different audiences are looking to take advantage of the usual seasonal slump this weekend.
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Late August generally is a time when Hollywood&#39;s studios dump movies for which they have low box office expectations, and this week continues that old philosophy with four new films crowding theaters nationwide.
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Overseas boxoffice tends to slacken at this time of the year, but two newcomers -- "Shark Tale" and "Wimbledon" -- showed early promise in kickoff dates over the weekend, while M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village" topped &#36;100 million in international gross and "Garfield" neared membership in the &#36;100 million club.
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In a quiet summer stanza  internationally, reigning boxoffice champ "Pirates of the  Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" dominated for the sixth  consecutive weekend, pillaging an estimated $44 million from  about 8,500 screens in 48 markets.
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Two of the summer's most anticipated movies signed on for small-screen appearances before their big-screen debuts.
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With movie makers wrapping up a  record $4 billion summer on Friday, Hollywood turned to fall  films and the Oscar hopefuls it hopes will push the annual box  office beyond last year's $9.5 billion.
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Much was expected from a number of big-budget/talked-about films that opened this year.
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Ticket sales at North American cinemas rose this summer, reversing last year's decline.
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Three new movies make U.S. debuts and one independent film, shark tale "Open Water," expands nationwide on Friday as the summer winds down to what should be a record box office haul fueled by hit sequels.
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The high profile Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow flew to the top of the box office charts in North America but did not soar.
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The all-star caper film "Ocean's Thirteen" made off with $37.1 million in North American ticket sales during its opening weekend to steal the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, according to studio estimates on Sunday.
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In the late days of summer, while still mostly unencumbered by any actual experience of the fall releases, The Times's chief film critics chatted about the season to come.
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Summer may have ended with a whimper instead of a bang, but Hollywood still managed to squeak out a record season at the box office.
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Hollywood is only marginally ahead of its lackluster 2005 in terms of dollars and cents. Studios are miles ahead in terms of summer hits and misses, though.