Theater Owners Want Movie Trailers to Be Much Shorter

If you've ever found yourself annoyed sitting in a movie theater after twenty minutes as movie trailers still play on screen, good news: Theater owners are not only on your side, but they appear to be taking major steps to change that. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the National Association of Theater Owners has released a new set of voluntary guidelines for movie trailers, specifying that they must be no longer than two minutes, and cannot be shown more than five months before a film's release. Right now, the average movie trailer is more in the range of two and a half minutes.

So, that's the good news. Understandably, though, we won't be seeing the effects of this for a while: Though the voluntary guidelines officially go into effect on Oct. 1, distributors and studios have been given two years exemption on it to account for any marketing materials that may already be in the process of production. 

[via The Hollywood Reporter]