2011: A lot of superheroes, profitable sequels, lost icons

As 2011 comes to a close, are you fondly remembering the Royal Wedding, or perhaps searching YouTube for Charlie Sheen rants, or maybe looking through magazine ads for the Karadashian line of nail polish?

Not that I'm judging. After all, I've just spent several hours gathering trivial movie factoids to reflect on the year in cinema. So who's the real time-waster here?

You probably won't be surprised to learn that the year's biggest box-office hits were dominated by sequels. No less than eight of the top 10 were follow-ups to earlier films in the "Harry Potter," "Transformers," "Twilight," "Hangover," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Fast and the Furious," "Cars" and "Planet of the Apes" series. (OK, that last one might be a remake … or a prequel … or a reboot … or something else.)

And the two top-10 pictures that were not sequels — "Thor" and "Captain America" — were designed to spawn sequels.

It was definitely the year of comic-book superheroes, beginning with "The Green Hornet" in January, a woefully unfunny farcical take on the character. Then, in May, came "Thor," the first summer entry and a much better big-screen adaptation. That was followed in June by the clever prequel, "X-Men: First Class," and the truly awful "Green Lantern" (maybe Hollywood should avoid "green" superheroes). And July gave us what is arguably the best of the bunch, "Captain America."

And all made big money, ensuring that we'll be seeing plenty more.

During the summer, Harry Potter leaped past "Star Wars" to take the crown as the biggest moneymaking movie series of all time. As a result, James Bond is in third place, followed by Batman and Shrek. (Shrek? Really?)

Kermit, Miss Piggy and the gang were reinvigorated and made a happily received return to the big screen with the simply titled "The Muppets." Here's hoping future entries in this franchise can retain the cynicism-free innocence this one recaptured.

Matt Damon took on the "everyman" mantle that once belonged to James Stewart. No one in 2011 was as good at portraying the kind of genial, down-to-earth character with whom the audience can quickly identify. Exhibits A, B and C are "The Adjustment Bureau," "Contagion" and "We Bought a Zoo."

On the distaff side, newcomer Jessica Chastain had an amazing run of films showing off her versatility. In "The Help" she was the white trash girl who married "up" and was snubbed by her peers; "The Debt" cast her as the younger version of Helen Mirren's Mossad spy; and she played sad, loving, confused wives in two ponder-the-universe films of very different stripes, "Tree of Life" and "Take Shelter."