LOS ANGELES - You can fly from Los Angeles to Seattle in less time than it takes to watch "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey." Elite runners can finish a marathon faster than the total time of "Django Unchained." And you can roast and carve a turkey quicker than going to see "Les Miserables."
Daily life may be swinging toward two-minute YouTube videos and brutally succinct tweets, but there's still one place where time practically stands still: the multiplex. Extra-long films have proliferated this holiday season, a consequence of "final-cut" directors who wield near unilateral control over their films' running times and digital filmmaking tools that allow for longer and repeated takes.
Some movie theater owners say the current crop of long-winded movies is costing them at the box office, as films approaching three hours in length can be shown only once an evening. To squeeze in extra showings, some are forced to book fewer films, giving ticket buyers fewer options.
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Exhibitors and more than a few movie critics have bemoaned this spate of prolonged productions. Yet, some members of the most important constituency in the film business say the long films don't really feel that time-consuming.
"It never lagged," said 12-year-old Jesse Serrato, who joined his family for the 169-minute "Hobbit" movie in Los Angeles and clearly has more fortitude than many adults. Added 15-year-old Jeremy Saborio: "It should have been even longer."
The young men are not alone: In a recent online survey conducted by the ticketing company Fandango of more than 1,000 moviegoers, 78 percent of the respondents said they feel long movies give them "more bang for their buck."
The year's maximalist movies include not only typically longer prestige titles such as "Lincoln" (149 minutes), "Les Miserables" (158) and "Zero Dark Thirty" (157), but also a comic-book movie ("The Dark Knight Rises," 164), a James Bond sequel ("Skyfall," 143) and even a comedy ("This Is 40," 134).
The epic running times haven't hurt some of these long movies at the box office. "Skyfall" has garnered domestic ticket sales of $272.6 million, "Dark Knight Rises" took in $448.1 million in North American theaters and "Lincoln" has grossed $108.5 million domestically as of last week.
But those outsized revenues have largely come from megaplexes, where theater owners can utilize more screens for a hit film. The operators of smaller complexes say they don't have that latitude and are consequently suffering.
Ted Mundorff, chief executive of the 229-screen Landmark Theatres, said that when movies exceed a little more than two hours, exhibitors lose a showtime a day - at a cost of about $3,600 per theater per night. With an average-length movie, Mundorff can book about five showings a day, with two in the sweet spot between 7 and 9:30 p.m., when theaters generate about 80 percent of their business. But movies like "The Hobbit" can be shown only four times a day, with one prime-time screening.
"We know there's going to be a cap at our box office," Mundorff said, adding that running times this holiday season are "way worse" than in previous years.
