LOS ANGELES  Christopher Nolan proved there is always room at the multiplex, even in swimsuit season, for a smart, original story. Will Ferrell bounced back. Michael Cera fell flat. Animation was the No. 1 genre. Sorry, “Sex and the City” ladies: It’s over.

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.