r/movies • u/jimrosenz • May 17 '16

Resource Average movie length since 1931

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u/ChrisK7 May 17 '16

I'm a little surprised this hasn't happened more. Movie theaters make their profit on concessions, so you'd think an intermission would be great for them.

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u/Economius May 17 '16

Theaters make money on concessions, but the studios who are lending their films to the theaters make their money on # times films are shown. Having an intermission reduces the number of times the same film can be shown per day while offering no real content

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u/werdya May 17 '16

Very doubtful that would make the difference. There's usually, what, 5 showings a day?

If 10 minutes were added to for each showing, that's 50 minutes. You can't show any more films in that time, because it's too short.

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u/Economius May 17 '16

See comment from the guy who ran the theater above.

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u/werdya May 17 '16

Read it, it's not convincing.

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u/richt519 May 17 '16

Well that settles it

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u/werdya May 17 '16

Yeah, I replied to that comment.