By DAVID GERMAIN
AP Movie Writer
From left, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe are shown in a scene from “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.”LOS ANGELES – Hollywood has more tricks in its bag than ever with digital 3-D and other new film tools. Yet as the images on screen get bigger and better, movie crowds keep shrinking – down to a 16-year low as 2011’s film lineup fell well short of studios’ record expectations.
Through New Year’s Eve on Saturday, projected domestic revenues for the year stand at $10.2 billion, down 3.5 percent from 2010’s, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. Taking higher ticket prices into account, movie attendance is off even more, with an estimated 1.28 billion tickets sold, a 4.4 percent decline and the smallest movie audience since 1995, when admissions totaled 1.26 billion.
Just what has put the movie business in the dumps is anyone’s guess – though safe bets include the tight economy, rising ticket prices, backlash against parades of sequels or remakes, and an almost-limitless inventory of portable and at-home gadgetry to occupy people’s time.