Movie attendance falls for third consecutive year

So long, 2005. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Hollywood executives were eager to say goodbye to a dismal movie year, the third straight in which attendance declined.

Domestic ticket sales plummeted by nearly $400 million to $8.8 billion, a 4.2 percent drop from 2004.

Attendance is dropping even more dramatically. About 1.4 billion movie tickets were sold domestically last year, compared with about 1.53 billion tickets in 2004, an 8.5 percent decrease.

Some executives were hoping the holiday season would end the year on an upswing, and to some extent, it did. Led by “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and “King Kong,” ticket sales over the Christmas and New Year’s four-day weekends surged nearly 30 percent compared to last year.

But the holiday spurt was too little, too late. Throughout the year, big films weren’t that big, and small movies couldn’t make up the difference.

Only one movie, “Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,” made more than $300 million. In the three previous years, three films crossed that mark.