Movie theater owners are grouping together to ask the Motion Picture Association of America to shorten the length of film trailers because it's bad for business.  Would you like it if there were less previews when you go see a movie?

I LOVE movie trailers!  The more the merrier.  In fact, a big reason I go to the actual theater to see a film is the loads of previews I'll get!

The National Association of Theater Owners believes movie trailers are too long and give away too much of the plot, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and they’re pushing for new marketing rules that would limit the length of a trailer to two minutes--that would be 30 seconds shorter than the current practice.

The association says many movie theaters currently play as many as eight trailers before a feature presentation, sometimes tacking on an additional 20 minutes or more, not including those pesky in-house commercials. Reportedly theater owners believe the new trailer guidelines would create a less annoying experience for moviegoers and encourage a boost in ticket sales.

But the movie studios aren’t exactly embracing the idea. One unidentified movie exec tells The Hollywood Reporter, “My trailers are two-and-a-half minutes long because that’s what we need to send the right message.”

Another veteran film distributor remarked, “Each film is different in how it needs to be marketed.”

The guidelines would be voluntary not mandatory, but studios fear theaters will exploit the new guidelines to actually cram in even more trailers, which the studios pay them to run.

FYI...The Warner Bros. Pictures trailer for Man of Steel, which debuts this month, is three minutes long.

 

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