Theater Owners Join Everyone Else in Wishing Trailers Would Be a Little Shorter

From iwatchstuff, Hoping to improve the moviegoing experience without altering their loose standards of value and cleanliness, the nation's theater owners are looking to push new studio marketing rules to shorten how long we sit there watching trailers.

As it currently stands, standards set by the MPAA limit trailers to two-and-a-half minutes, with a once-a-year exception policy allowing studios to go beyond that--which explains why the most epic of all the epic Man of Steel trailers had a full three minutes of dads and fishing. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the National Association of Theater Owners would like to knock that down to a slightly more reasonable two minutes, cumulatively cutting several minutes off preview time that could then be passed on to viewers or filled with a longer, more thrill-packed CGI roller coaster ride.

The studios are, naturally, not too pleased with the idea of losing thirty seconds they could fill with fades to black and Inception blares. "My trailers are 2.5 minutes because that's what we need to send the right message," said one unnamed studio source, referring to the scientifically-determined length of time it takes for the lady next to you to whisper whether a film looks like a cute one. "This could be a paradigm shift. Thirty seconds is a long time."

Ever-concerned with pleasing the Fast & Furious-watching hoi polloi, executives further expressed concern that even if they do agree to the changes, theaters may simply fill the space with even more trailers, netting themselves more money for the additional promotion. Our nation's more trivial "NATO" has declined to comment. It seems third party intervention may be required to reach a mutually-satisfying agreement of just showing the same five Coca-Cola trivia questions again.