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A quiet Labor Day weekend capped a Summer season that started off strong but struggled to maintain momentum through the full four months. Total domestic box office came in at $4.29 billion, which is off 2.6 percent from last year's record $4.4 billion. Overall, it ranks as the third highest-grossing Summer behind 2011 and 2009. However, the estimated 534 million tickets sold during the period is tied with 2010 for lowest ticket sales in at least 15 years. Christopher NolanSeth MacFarlaneChanning TatumTyler PerryMichael Moore

The first weekend of September is notoriously one of the places where tough sells go to die at the box office, and this year fits well in to that model. For a while, Bradley Cooper drama The Words looked like the only nationwide release, though last week Lionsgate/Summit recently decided to move forward with a nationwide release for Bruce Willis-Henry Cavill thriller The Cold Light of Day. Neither of these movies is getting much attention, and this will likely be the first weekend in four years where no movie earns more than $10 million. Steven Spielberg

Thanks to a remarkably weak slate of movies, overall box office came in at around $806 million in August. That's off 10 percent from last year, and is actually the lowest-grossing August since 2006. Will FerrellMeryl Streep

Thanks to a massive opening in China, The Dark Knight Rises is now the 13th movie ever to reach $1 billion worldwide. Including Monday domestic grosses, The Dark Knight Rises has now made over $1.01 billion, which means sometime this weekend it passed The Dark Knight ($1.003 billion) to become the highest-grossing Batman movie ever.

As usual, audiences largely stayed away from movie theaters over Labor Day weekend. Still, supernatural thriller The Possession easily took first place with one of the best debuts ever for the holiday. Lawless was a distant second, while Oogieloves In The BIG Balloon Adventure registered one of the worst nationwide openings ever. For the four-day weekend the Top 12 earned $109.5 million, which is roughly on par with last Labor Day weekend. Shia LaBeoufTom HardyChristopher NolanMichael Moore

As expected, the box office was fairly quiet on Friday. The Possession debuted in first place with a solid $6.05 million at 2,816 locations; that's lower than Lionsgate's other recent supernatural horror movies The Last Exorcism ($9.4 million) and The Haunting in Connecticut ($9.7 million), but it does at least put the movie on pace for a four-day opening around $20 million.Michael Moore

September is typically the slowest month of the year at the box office—last September set the record with a measly $607 million—and this year looks to be no different. Resident Evil: Retribution and Finding Nemo's 3D re-release should both do decent business, and Trouble with the Curve will generate a lot of interest thanks to Clint Eastwood's first on-camera role in nearly four years. Otherwise, though, things are looking pretty quiet, and it would be surprising if September 2012 set a new monthly record.Bradley CooperBruce WillisNicolas CageMichelle RodriguezMilla JovovichPaul Thomas AndersonJoaquin PhoenixAmy Adams

As Summer 2012 officially comes to an end over Labor Day weekend, it looks like the box office draught is likely to continue. Sam RaimiShia LaBeoufJessica ChastainTom HardyGary OldmanKenn ViselmanMichael Moore

The Expendables 2 reached a handful of major new markets this weekend and held on to first place at the overseas box office. Meanwhile, The Dark Knight Rises continued to inch closer to the $1 billion worldwide mark ahead of its openings in China and Italy this week.Christopher Nolan

The Expendables 2 repeated in first place on what was easily the lowest-grossing weekend of 2012 so far: the Top 12 added up to $83.8 million, or 12 percent less than the previous low (Feb. 3-5). While the end of August is generally a slow time for movie-going, it was exacerbated this year by a middling set of holdovers and an even worse group of new releases (Premium Rush, Hit and Run and The Apparition) that couldn't even break $7 million. One interesting area, at least, was the performance of 2016 Obama's America, which is already the highest-grossing conservative documentary ever.Will FerrellZach GalifianakisChristopher NolanMichael Moore

As is standard at the end of August, the box office is set to cool off substantially this weekend; it's looking abnormally bad this year, though, with all three of this weekend's new nationwide releases poised to fall short of $10 million. This means The Expendables 2 will repeat in first place, albeit with the lowest number one gross so far this year. Also worth keeping an eye on is the performance of conservative documentary 2016 Obama's America, which is expanding in to over 1,000 theaters after a strong run in limited release.Christopher NolanJoseph Gordon-LevittMichael Moore

Early this weekend, The Dark Knight Rises flew past The Dark Knight's overseas total. The conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy added $21.4 million from 61 markets, which brought its total to $488.6 million. That's ahead of The Dark Knight's $469.7 million, and Rises will drastically widen that gap with openings in China and Italy at the end of the month.Seth MacFarlane

The Expendables 2 easily wound up in first place this weekend, though attendance was noticeably off from the 2010 original. The three other openers were all modest movies that wound up with modest debuts, and none of them were outright misses. The Top 12 earned $127.3 million this weekend, which is a 20 percent improvement over the same period last year.Arnold SchwarzeneggerBruce WillisWill Ferrell

Even with four new releases, it was a somewhat quiet day at the North American box office on Friday. The Expendables 2 easily took first place, though its tally was noticeably lower than the 2010 original. Meanwhile, The Bourne Legacy plummeted at the beginning of its second weekend, and openers ParaNorman and Sparkle were in a tight race for third.Will FerrellZach Galifianakis

The late-August doldrums are about to kick-in, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for one more big, dumb Summer blockbuster.Whitney HoustonLiam HemsworthMiley CyrusArnold SchwarzeneggerBruce Willis

Once again, The Dark Knight Rises easily topped the overseas box office this past weekend. The conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy earned $35.1 million from 58 markets, which is on average a 49 percent decline from last weekend. That brought the movie's overseas total to $446.6 million, which puts it on pace to exceed The Dark Knight's $468.6 million total sometime next weekend. Worldwide, The Dark Knight Rises has now taken in over $837 million, and with China and Italy still on the horizon there's a very good chance it eventually passes $1 billion.Seth MacFarlane

Even without Matt Damon, The Bourne Legacy easily debuted in first place this weekend ahead of Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis political comedy The Campaign and box office behemoth The Dark Knight Rises. Also, after a quiet mid-week start Hope Springs saw a nice jump in attendance over the weekend. The Top 12 grossed an estimated $133 million, which is off 7 percent from the same period last year.Jeremy RennerChristopher NolanMeryl StreepArnold Schwarzenegger

The Bourne Legacy and The Campaign both got off to respectable starts on Friday, which pushed reigning champion The Dark Knight Rises down to third place.Matt DamonJeremy RennerWill FerrellZach GalifianakisChristopher NolanMeryl Streep