Hollywood has been in decline for quite some time, but this year Tinseltown suffered its worst-ever summer box-office revenue, down roughly 16 percent from last year. Hollywood couldn't even clear $4 billion this summer, despite churning out mega-budget, mega-sequel monstrosities like: Transformers: The Last Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and the latest Mummy installment. THR reports: 

That's according to comScore, which is predicting that revenue will end up at roughly $3.78 billion (a 15.7 percent decline). Attendance also plummeted, and is almost assured of hitting a 25-year low in terms of the number of tickets sold, according to Box Office Mojo.

The sequelitis virus that first invaded Hollywood last year only grew worse this summer. A number of franchise installments underperformed domestically, including Transformers: The Last Knight ($132 million), The Mummy ($80.1 million) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales ($172 million). While Pirates 5 certainly fared the best, it paled in comparison to the previous installments. [...]

Summer titles that all-out bombed domestically include King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and The Dark Tower, which kicked off an especially brutal August.

Another sore point was R-rated comedies. Baywatch, The House and Rough Night all bombed despite impressive star wattage. The only film to break the R-rated curse was Malcolm D. Lee'sGirls Trip, from Universal and producer Will Packer, which has earned $108.1 million to date.

"The lesson for Hollywood this summer is that every movie counts when it comes to box office and there are no 'throwaway' titles," says Paul Dergarabedian of comScore. "At least three tentpoles missed the mark in North America as well as a handful of R-rated comedies that left audiences frowning, and the missing revenue from those failures could arguably have left a $500 million-plus void in the marketplace — enough to turn a potentially strong $4 billion-plus summer season heavyweight into a 98-pound weakling."

Ironically, Wonder Woman, which was panned and boycotted by progressives for featuring an Israeli actress, was on the shortlist of films that fared best of all this summer. 

While some might argue that streaming services like Netflix and AmazonPrime and access to movies via pirating websites have all contributed to Hollywood's decline, it's only part of the equation. 

Hollywood -- particularly its big-budget installments and major studios -- typically pander to the lowest common denominator. CGI is overused to make up for a lack of quality screenwriting, political agendas are woven into every script however superfluous, actors lecture everyday moviegoers about how dumb they are for supporting their president, and comedies are dumbed-down for an audience with a collective IQ slightly greater than that of an Eggo Waffle. 

Maybe, just maybe, Americans are sick of Hollywood. If so, it's high time.