Box Office Mojo‘s Brandon Gray is reporting that the $37.3 million earned yesterday by Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a technical shortfaller. Although it earned 2011’s biggest opening-day income, T3 nonetheless “pales compared to the opening day income of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and likely yielded fewer viewers than the first Transformers.”

There are three reasons for this. One, a large percentage of moviegoers are always slow on the pickup as far as advance internet buzz is concerned, and so they haven’t heard that the film has to be seen for the 45-minute attack-on-Chicago finale. Two, the crappy quality of Revenge of the Fallen has diminished general interest in the franchise. And three, people are feeling a little burned out right now about 3D franchise movies and so a certain percentage didn’t go yesterday because they’re taking a wait-and-see attitude.