Theater Owners Want Movie Trailers Shortened

Posted on February 1, 2014

Theater owners think movie trailers are too long. They want a maximum length of two minutes for trailers. The 2-minute limit is one recommendation the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) is making with its newly updated In-Theater Marketing Guidelines. The guidelines say, "Trailers shall not exceed two minutes in length. Two exemptions per year per distributor, with a maximum length of 3 minutes, based on the theatrical release date of the film being advertised."

Two minutes seems like plenty of time to tease a movie. The guidelines also say exhibitors can only place trailers with content appropriate for the particular theater. In other words, they don't want a horror trailer to air in a theater that airs children's movies. NATO also wants the trailers to run no more than 150 days before the film is to be released in theaters. It might also help if there were less trailers. Take a look:

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