Now here’s a strange puzzle for you, o my readership.

Riddle me this:

In the midst of a deep recession, the studios somehow manage to take in fully five percent more than last year.  But three of the top eleven worst all time box office openings were released in this very same summer.

You may be as baffled as I am right now…but no worries.  Here are a couple points to help you clear things up:

1. Some of the biggest releases ever landed this summer.  A rapid succession of high-dollar earners kicked off the summer movie season.  Stuff like Angels and Demons, Night at the Museum 2, Up, and Star Trek turned the box office into a money machine.

2. Summer movie season is longer this year.  It’s commonly agreed that the summer movie season officially kicked off with Wolverine back in April, and though summer’s really only wishful thinking at that point, the studios had already launched their biggies.  It’s not hard to have a big-earning summer when your summer takes up almost half a year.

3. Ticket prices went up, especially for IMAX /3-D productions.  When you have to wear special glasses to see a movie, or it can only be shown in certain massive installations, you can generally get away with charging more per ticket.  This helped pump up the grosses.

So that shows you how weird things have been this summer–huge earners coupled with huge losses and a whole bunch of strange things that no one saw coming, like the sheer number of movies that tanked,  and the lackluster performance of big earner G.I. Joe.

It’s been one wild summer…and it’s not over yet.