There as no slump then, there is no slump now! Why comparing cumulative weekend box office makes no sense and hurts our desire for better movies.

Brandon Grey at Box Office Mojo called the weekend box office 'listless'. Nikkie Finke at Deadline Hollywood called it 'a soft weekend'. And Brent Lang of The Wrap called it 'sluggish'. 'Weak' was the word as three mid-to-low budget films opened with both solid reviews and decent box office. Also on everyone's mind was the fact that this weekend was down this year by about 10% compared to this weekend in 2010. We've been hearing that talk quite a bit this year, as each weekend is considered a quasi-disaster because it didn't equal or surpass the respective weekend from last year. There is a reason I never discuss how well a respective weekend performed compared to the same weekend last year or the year before. It's irrelevant. Every year brings different movies and those movies perform in vastly different ways from the year before or the year after. More importantly, it feeds into the absurd 'this year must be BIGGER' mentality, even if the product doesn't justify that. Want to know why this year's first few months have been down compared to last year? A) Avatar and B) Alice in Wonderland.

2011: the year 3D kills mainstream movie-going?

I've talked about this here and there over the last year, but we are now officially in 2011. Two things of note: 2011 will have the most packed summer schedule in recent memory. 2011 will have an obscene number of films being shown in 3D at multiplexes near you.

The Green Hornet, Sanctum, Gnomeo and Juliet, Drive Angry, Justin Beiber: Never Say Never, Mars Needs Moms, Thor, Priest, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Kung Fu Panda 2, Green Lantern, Cars 2, Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II, Captain America, The Smurfs, Conan the Barbarian, Fright Night, Spy Kids 4, Final Destination 5, Piranha 3DD, Dolphin Tale, The Three Musketeers, Contagion, Puss in Boots, Immortals, Happy Feet 2, Arthur Christmas, Hugo Cabret, Sherlock Holmes 2, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, and The Adventures of Tin-Tin. That's 32 titles in 2011.