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The thing is, a five-hour movie is bad for business.
If a movie theater has to run a five-hour movie, they can't play it as many times per day as they can a 3 1/2-hour movie, so they end up losing LOADS of money.
Say a movie theater is open from midnight to midnight and they have ROTK playing on three screens. The most they can play a five-hour movie on those three screens is twice each, which means six showings. They can get nine showings out of a 3.5-hour movie, which is a time and a half as much money (assuming, of course, that every show sells out...which it will for a movie like ROTK).
The movies make a lot more money under the current system, especially when people buy the extended cut months later on DVD.
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