Not much of a shock in a year that saw studios release a string of uninspired turds while competing with Netflix instant and an ever-growing number of kick-ass TV shows like Game of Thrones (see also: the year’s biggest flops), but while revenue was only down 3.5 percent from last year, actual attendance hit a 16-year low. To be honest, I’m surprised it was only 16.

The year got off to a dismal start with what could be called an “Avatar” hangover, when revenues lagged far behind 2010 receipts that had been inflated by the huge success of James Cameron’s sci-fi sensation.

“There were a lot of high-profile movies that just ended up being a little less than were hoped for,” said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox, whose sequel “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” has been part of an under-achieving lineup of family films for the holidays. “The fall was pretty dismal. There just weren’t any real breakaway, wide-appeal films.” [TimesFreePress]

That’s part of the problem! Everyone was busy trying to make “wide-appeal films,” and what most of them ended up with was “zero-appeal films,” like Abduction. You made a dude action movie with a terrible actor only chicks like, brilliant. I’ve ranted on the subject too much already, but between the abundance of watered-down crap and the retarded release schedule where all the “good movies” are packed into the same two-week period (they do something similar with “blockbusters” during the summer but on a smaller scale), the movie studios have some problems that could be corrected fairly easily. Obviously, that’s easy for jackasses like me to type between Cheetos runs.

Also, there’s another problem with my argument: 16 years ago, the cinematic low point we’re comparing 2011 to, was 1995. Some movies that came out in 1995…

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Wifebeaters vs. Rashguards. Go on, bro, make a move.

BoxOfficeMojo released their list of 2011′s highest-grossing movies today (based on domestic box office), so if you’re a studio exec, these are the best films of the year. You may also notice that none of the top 15 are movies released in the last two weeks of the year during the awards season window when studios release all the movies aimed at actual adults at the same time. Weird how that works out, isn’t it? You’d almost think that’s a dumb strategy.

Numbers 11 through 20 below.

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It's funny because you can just never get a taxi in New York City!

This weekend marked the worst overall box office gross since September 19, 2008, as Americans only spent $67.8 million to see such instant classics like New Year’s Eve, The Sitter and some other movies that you’ll never see. Despite finishing first with $13.7 million in revenue, the biggest flop was New Year’s Eve, the insulting holiday collaboration produced by Satan [*cough* AL-QAEDA RECRUITMENT VIDEO! *cough, cough* -Vince]. The film cost $56 million to make, and I apologize if that just cause a vein to explode in your head.

And if you’re upset that New Year’s Eve still made almost $14 million, you can place the blame on women.

The movie, directed by Garry Marshall, stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Zac Efron, Robert De Niro, Halle Berry, Seth Meyers, Alyssa Milano, Jessica Biel and others. Women saw the movie in far higher numbers than men. Fellman said 70 percent of the audience was made up of women.

It is a follow-up to Marshall’s 2010 hit “Valentine’s Day,” which also featured big stars in short vignettes and went on to gross $216.5 million on a $52 million budget. (Via Yahoo!)

On one hand, I’m sort of proud that moviegoers learned from their past mistake of paying to see Valentine’s Day. But on the other hand, I’m concerned that 30% of the people who saw this film were men. I’ll hold out hope that the majority of men who saw this were being punished by their wives and girlfriends for dropping a grand at a strip club on Friday night, because that’s about the only excuse I’ll accept.

More than anything, we should hope that Garry Marshall quits it with these ensemble chick flicks that try to make us believe that holidays can still be magical. If we’re lucky, maybe his next project will be called Thanksgiving, and the entire cast gets trampled to death at a Target the next day. Or at least he can make Saturday Night Live’s The Apocalypse. [It would've done better if they'd taken my suggestion about replacing the cast with Terrence Howard in different hats. -Vince]

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Pictured: Edward Cullen, I assume.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 opened at midnight last night and pulled in $30.3 million, proving once again that people absolutely eat this crap up with a soup spoon. The $30 million figure is in line with the midnight screening of the last Twilight, Eclipse, and slightly ahead of New Moon’s $26 million. In other news, Stephanie Meyer just bought a gold-plated helicopter, which she won’t even use. She just thought her other helicopter looked lonely.

Look, here’s the thing: good. If there’s a movie, or series of movies, that you really enjoy, more power to you. See it at midnight, see it three times opening weekend, buy the poster, buy the Blu-Ray, go to an event where the cast will sign your cape or whatever vampire stuff you have, write on a message board about it, etc. Go sick. Don’t let cynical jerks like me who have never seen it and think it’s incredibly stupid detract from your enjoyment of it in any way. Just because I think it’s ridiculous that $30 million worth of people stood in line outside a movie theater at 11pm on a cold November night to see a melodramatic movie about vampires and premarital sex doesn’t mean it IS ridiculous. You like what you like, and you are perfectly entitled to enjoy it without interference from me. Vaya con dios.

Unless of course you are going to see Jack and Jill, in which case you will be placed under citizen’s arrest in the most violent manner possible and waterboarded in the theater using your own 32oz jug of Mountain Dew. That’s just a matter of principle.

UPDATE: The final numbers are in, showing Inception at $62.8 million, up slightly from the estimate of $60.4

Inception opened over the weekend, and while that was the movie event of the summer for dorks like you and me who can use the internet and visit Wal Mart without aid of a Rascal scooter, there was some question as to whether such an expensive “art” movie would play to the real America.  It was kind of an important issue, because regardless of whether you liked it or not, Inception failing to earn out could jeopardize the chances of a studio ever giving a director the creative freedom to make an expensive, non-comic book, non-sequel, non-franchise, non-board game, non-remake, non-Will Smith’s-son film like this ever again — even to a big swinging wiener like Chris Nolan.

Luckily, like free-PBR night at the local dive, The Heartland and The Fartland seem to be in agreement on this one.  Predictions for Inception‘s first weekend had been anywhere from $40 million to $60 million, and in a rare, restoring-our-faith-in-humanity move, early estimates put it at $60.4 million.  These are just estimated numbers, and based on anecdotal evidence of all the people I know who saw it on Sunday, I imagine the actual numbers will be up slightly from this when they come in.

Oh hey, more good news: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice tanked at number three, earning $17 million for number three, behind Despicable Me.  This is the second flop in a row for Jerry Bruckheimer, whose Prince of Persia topped out at $89 million domestically (though it did well overseas).  Apparently people weren’t charmed by “I am the sorcerer… and you are my apprentice hurrr durrr hurrrr hadouken party” premise.  I hear that to ease the pain, Jay Baruchel went to  Schmuckheimer’s house and played him a sad, sad song on his nose-kazoo.

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