LOS ANGELES — “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” took in about $153.5 million in North America over the weekend, for an estimated $545 million total since opening in mid-December, putting Hollywood in position to set a full-year domestic box-office record.

But reaching that summit was not easy: The “Star Wars” phenomenon notwithstanding, the film industry in many ways limped to the top. For the first time in at least 35 years, for instance, the once-impregnable Warner Bros. landed not one movie in the Top 15.

When the final returns are in, domestic ticket sales — currently at $10.89 billion, up 7.1 percent from the count at this time last year — are expected to exceed $11 billion, according to Rentrak, which compiles box-office data. The previous record was $10.9 billion in 2013.

Until the year’s average admission price is finally settled, strict adjustment for ticket price inflation is impossible. Theatrical attendance this year appears to have roughly matched the 1.34 billion tickets sold in 2013, and handily outstrips the one billion level of the late 1980s; but it remains behind a recent peak year, 2002, which had 1.57 billion admissions. That would translate into roughly $13 billion in sales at current ticket prices, although in reality today’s higher prices would probably have discouraged some consumers and trimmed admissions.

Two hand-me-down film properties drove this year’s results: The best-selling releases of the year are likely to be the seventh chapter in a “Star Wars” franchise that began 38 years ago, and the fourth entry in the 22-year-old “Jurassic Park” series.

Behind those nostalgia-driven megahits, however, dozens of high-profile films struggled, especially when they tried to take the moviegoing masses somewhere entirely new.

“The Big Short,” centered on the housing collapse of the late 2000s, with $10.5 million in weekend box-office sales and $16 million to date, and “Concussion,” a hard look at the National Football League and brain injury, with $11 million in sales since opening on Friday, were fighting for attention. Both placed well behind “Daddy’s Home,” a comedy starring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell that had $38.8 million in sales. But they beat “Point Break,” a critically derided 3-D action remake that became Warner’s latest collapse, with just $10.2 million in first weekend sales from about 2,900 theaters.

The year’s overriding lesson: Bold strokes, for the most part, don’t pay.

“I hope I have the nerve to do it again,” Thomas E. Rothman, Sony’s movie chairman, said of the drubbing he took on Robert Zemeckis’s “The Walk,” a daring 3-D spectacle that reconstructed a tightrope stunt between the World Trade Center towers in 1974.

That film took in a total of $10.1 million after its release in September. Speaking at the Paley Center for Media in New York last month, Mr. Rothman noted that original movie fare was being routinely ignored by viewers, who similarly turned away from “Everest,” a 3-D thriller from Universal Pictures. Other expensive “original” movies (though sometimes based on books or other source material) that went belly up included “In the Heart of the Sea” (Warner Bros.), the retro-themed “Tomorrowland” (Walt Disney Studios) and the space adventure “Jupiter Ascending” (Warner).

One original-minded film that bucked the trend was “The Martian,” starring Matt Damon as a kind of Robinson Crusoe on Mars. The film dominated the fall, taking in $225 million for Fox and setting up a possible Oscar run for its director, Ridley Scott.

The audience for the most part preferred to curl up in its comfort zone, turning out for new iterations of old screen stories, including “Creed,” in which Sylvester Stallone again played Rocky Balboa; the fifth “Mission: Impossible” movie, in which Tom Cruise was still Ethan Hunt; and “Spectre,” the 24th film in the 53-year-old James Bond series.

But even the old stuff didn’t always work. Arnold Schwarzenegger sagged in “Terminator Genisys,” from Paramount, and nostalgia couldn’t make hits of Warner’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “Vacation.”

In his talk at the Paley Center, Mr. Rothman said studios are now firmly committed to finding their future in the past — something that will become fully apparent in 2017 when the next iterations of “Spider-Man,” “Wolverine” and “Star Wars” are scheduled to hit screens.

“Every weekend of that summer now has a giant sequel on it,” Mr. Rothman said.

While banking on nostalgia and growing international markets to make up for flat home-entertainment sales, studios and their indie competitors will find much to contemplate in the behavior this year of a domestic audience whose likes and dislikes were often startlingly pronounced.

“The ceiling has risen, and the floor has dropped,” said Howard Cohen, a co-president of the indie distributor Roadside Attractions. That company did particularly well with two small prize contenders, “Love & Mercy” (released in partnership with Lionsgate) and “Mr. Holmes” (with Miramax). Mr. Cohen said the films succeeded in part because they opened for a long run in the summer months, rather than waiting for the fall awards season.

“We saw a lot of lemmings jumping over the cliff into the fall,” he said of the box-office carnage in September and October, when “Spotlight” and “Brooklyn” were among the few survivors.

Viewers clearly were not interested in stories about hard-edged climbers, creative powers notwithstanding. “Steve Jobs,” with Michael Fassbender as the sometimes noxious Apple executive, bombed; “Burnt,” with Bradley Cooper as a manic celebrity chef, also found few takers.

As of Sunday, prospects looked better for a similar story of female ambition. “Joy,” in which Jennifer Lawrence plays the tough Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano, took in a fairly strong $17.5 million for Fox, though its ultimate commercial prospects were yet to be decided over the long holiday.

While some ensembles faltered — Warner’s “Magic Mike XXL” took in only a little more than half the box office of its 2012 predecessor — audiences for the most part responded to films with large casts. (The more Twitter followers, the merrier.) The car-racing ensemble movie “Furious 7,” with $353 million in domestic ticket sales, helped power Universal to No. 1 in studio market share after years of being an also-ran.

Universal’s “Straight Outta Compton,” about the rap group N.W.A., took in $161.2 million, setting sales records for a musical biopic. And Disney struck pay dirt with “The Avengers: Age of Ultron,” which grouped together Marvel superheroes and delivered $459 million in domestic sales.

The breakouts were often driven by female leads.

“Cinderella” was a major hit for Disney, which also got a boost from Pixar’s “Inside Out,” featuring the voice of Amy Poehler. (On the downside, Pixar’s unblemished track record ended with “The Good Dinosaur,” which was a box-office dud.)

Amy Schumer, the devotedly inappropriate comedian, became a movie star with “Trainwreck.” “Pitch Perfect 2,” centered on a group of misfit a cappella singers, nearly tripled the performance of its 2012 predecessor, with $184.3 million in sales.

“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2” (Lionsgate) kept Ms. Lawrence on top, no matter how her Miracle Mop movie fares. “Mockingjay Part 2” has so far collected $264.6 million.

Even the success of “The Avengers” could be traced to women, with Elizabeth Olsen stealing scenes as the Scarlet Witch, and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow in a much more prominent role.

Ms. Johansson’s next film is more of a question mark, however. She will appear as a bawdy water ballet star in “Hail, Caesar!” — a dangerously original Hollywood spoof that will buck the trend of sequels with its release on Feb. 5.