How Long Do Movies Stay In Theaters? 10 Factors That Affect Films

There’s a reason why 99% of movies released in theatres today are high-concept action and superhero thrill rides, and it’s the same reason why Oscar-bait dramas are released in the back end of the year. It all comes down to when the movie would be most successful and stay in theatres the longest.

There’s no denying that the next Spider-Man or Dr. Strange movie will be a massive success, and, regardless of the movie’s quality, there are a lot more factors that influence when we’ll see the next surprise success like the foreign language black comedy Parasite.

10 Awards

More often than not, if a movie is unrelated to a franchise and it isn’t a genre movie, it will generally be an awards contender, or at least want to be. For that reason, these movies will be released towards the back end of the year, as close to awards season as possible, so that the word of mouth will help it stay in theatres.

Usually, when a movie wins an Oscar, it’ll get a second run in movie theatres. Most recently, Parasite made more than $260 million worldwide thanks to its award wins.

9 Sequels

Regardless of how good sequels are, if a movie is a part of a franchise or it’s a successor to a movie that has already enjoyed a boatload of success, the chances are it’ll stay in theatres for a while.

There is a guaranteed audience when it comes to sequels and for many of them, it’s almost impossible for them to fail, especially most superhero movies and Star Wars. It is for this reason so many studios are developing sequels to their old IPs such as Bill & Ted.

8 Ratings

R-rated movies can still be excellent and even act as outliers of the system and perform pretty well, but studios most likely won’t greenlight a screenplay unless it’s free of any bad language, nudity, sex, or anything else that would usually get a movie an R rating.

If a movie has an R rating, it immediately cuts out millions of potential ticket buyers. This has made the existence of Deadpool 3 up in the air, as Disney now owns the IP, but Deadpool’s humor is based on all of the above.

7 Rotten Tomatoes Score / Audience Reception

There are some movies with great rotten tomatoes scores, and very few of them underperformed at the box office. Though there are many movies that are well-reviewed by critics and praised by audiences that go under the radar, for the most part, these websites are what audiences use for opinions and how to find new releases that aren’t marketed as well as superhero movies are.

6 Casting

Making the wrong casting decisions can have a massive impact on the success of the movie, which is why the same ten actors tend to share the majority of lead roles in movies released today. Many actors are cast because they fit the role, but more often than not, they are cast because they have proven that they are bankable and have a great track record of box office successes.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Will Smith was wanted for almost every single male leading role, including Neo in The Matrix, and now it’s Dwayne Johnson, as every movie he stars in, good or bad, is always a hit.

5 Marketing

Mountains of marketing can’t always rescue a bad movie, but continuous marketing can keep movies in the theatres for months. Marketing is one of the reasons that helped Joker make over a billion dollars worldwide, as Warner Bros. kept the movie’s budget low and used more money on the film’s marketing, which is why it made more than almost every other Batman movie.

4 Genre

Superhero movies have gotten more and more popular for the past 20 years, and, as their budgets get bigger and bigger, so do their box office intakes and their lasting time in the movie theatre. Any movie that isn’t as high concept will suffer at the box office, but those movies comfortably find a home on Netflix.

How much longer the genre’s success continues for is anybody’s guess, as even Steven Spielberg himself has stated that superhero movies will go the way of the western when audiences inevitably suffer from superhero fatigue.

3 Theatre Location

Location and region can play a major role in a movie’s success. Not only that, but the type of movie can have different performances depending on the country. Movies such as Transformers, The Fast And The Furious, and its sequels see huge success in China, and it’s why studios don’t mind too much if they are less successful domestically.

2 Film Format

Some movies just have to be seen on the big screen, and other movies just have to be seen in the IMAX. Ever since The Dark Knight, all of Christopher Nolan’s movies have had a certain amount of footage shot specifically on IMAX cameras, and, as IMAX screens are limited and often sold out, the format helps the movie stay in the theatres for much longer as opposed to a normal format.

The same will happen for 3D formats, which is why, when a movie is released in 3D, it is regularly released in 2D as well, just so the studio can cover all the bases.

1 Competition

In the case that similar movies come out around the same time, one usually triumphs over the other, and not necessarily because it’s the better film, but because of all of every other reason, leaving the other movie to become a forgotten relic.

As COVID-19 has caused a lot of delays in the movie industry, it means there’ll be a ton of competition in 2021 and that some movies will be pushed out of theatres before they know it due to other movies with much more backing behind them.