How long can a movie last in movie theaters?
It really depends on the movie and the size of the market. I run a 5 screen theatre in a relatively small town. The average movie only plays here for 2-3 weeks. We’ll have 4-5 movies a year that play for five weeks and we’re lucky if we get one a year that plays six weeks. The industry has changed drastically over the last 15-20 years. It’s partly due to the emphasis placed on huge opening weekends and it’s partly due to the shrinking DVD release windows. At our company’s other theatre we played My Big Fat Greek Wedding for about 16 weeks in 2002 and we played Star Wars Episode 1 and The Sixth Sense for 12 weeks in 1999. Going back to when I was a kid, I can remember the theatre in my home town playing Back to the Future for close to six months. One thing to note about my theatre is that many movies leave a week or two sooner than necessary because we need to make room for the next movie. If we had a few more screens then we could get 3-4 weeks out of many movies every year.
