A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : AS TIME GOES BY : 4 Pounds of Popcorn Should Be Plenty

As winter approaches, the days might be getting shorter, but this year’s batch of holiday movies are getting longer. From “The Prince of Tides” and “Bugsy,” which run 130 minutes, to “JFK” and “At Play in the Fields of the Lord,” which are over three hours, it’s obvious--’tis the season of long movies. And those aren’t the only ones. There’s Steven Spielberg’s “Hook” (140 minutes), “For the Boys” (145 minutes) and “Grand Canyon” (140 minutes), to name a few.

Traditionally, movies with longer running times have been received less enthusiastically by theater owners because it means one fewer showing of a film per day, which translates into less box-office revenue. But now, most agree, it doesn’t make all that much difference--provided the film is a hit.

“Basically, it’s been shown that if a movie is well-received, the audiences will come no matter what the length,” says Thomas Sherak, president of distribution at 20th Century Fox, the company releasing “For the Boys” and “Grand Canyon.” As an example, Sherak pointed to last year’s box-office success of “Dances With Wolves,” which ran almost three hours. “If the picture works, the studio ends up making just as much money. If it’s not a good movie, you really have problems.”

John Krier, owner of Exhibitor Relations, a company that tracks box-office figures, agrees: “Theater owners really aren’t as concerned about this as they used to be,” he says. “If it’s a movie like ‘Gandhi’ or ‘The Last Emperor,’ audiences don’t care about the length.”

Krier also noted that with the explosion of multiplexes throughout the country, theaters can now run the same film on several screens at once, ensuring at least five performances a day.

Sherak, who says a film’s optimum running time for exhibitors is about 1 hour 50 minutes, admits that once a film’s length begins approaching 2 hours 10 minutes, the theater owners have to begin adjusting their showtimes. “Sometimes they have to cut down on the time they have for showing trailers,” he says.

And for those of you looking for a shorter film, try one of this season’s already certified hits--Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” It clocks in at just over an hour and a half.