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New Delhi: Ranbir Kapoor’s Ramayana trailer, which runs for over four minutes, has generated conversation over its unusually long duration. However, industry insiders say that for large-scale films with ensemble casts, extended trailers have increasingly become the norm.

Several recent Bollywood releases have followed a similar approach. Welcome to the Jungle, headlined by Akshay Kumar and featuring a cast of over 30 actors, had a trailer lasting approximately 4 minutes and 10 seconds.

Explaining the decision at the time, director Ahmed Khan had said, “All trailers are made keeping the holding capacity and creating the urgency for the consumer. My trailer needed that time as I had to meet the point of showcasing so many characters and scale.”

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Likewise, the trailer of Dhurandhar was about 4 minutes and 8 seconds long, while the film itself had a runtime of nearly 3 hours and 34 minutes. Producer Rajesh Vasani believes changing film lengths have influenced trailer cuts.

“There was a time when a film duration was about two-and-a-half hours, but today the run time of films is over three hours and hence they have a lot to accommodate in the trailer,” he said.

Rohit Shetty’s films have also embraced longer promotional cuts. The trailer of Singham Again ran for 4 minutes and 58 seconds, while Cirkus had a trailer of 3 minutes and 53 seconds. Other event films such as Shamshera, KGF: Chapter 2 and Saaho also released trailers that crossed the three-minute mark.

Trade expert and exhibitor Yusuf Shaikh says the trend is largely driven by films with multiple stars and grand production values.

“This only happens with multi-starcast films. There are so many stars that to justify each artist one would need time. And then each film which is projecting themselves as larger than life wants to show scale, music and effects along with the number of artists. There are rare films that can manage to show everything in a short trailer,” he said.

Actor Suniel Shetty has previously voiced his support for ensemble films, saying, “Multistarers will save the industry.” He cited the success of films like Welcome to the Jungle and Dhamaal 4 as evidence that audiences continue to enjoy big ensemble entertainers.

Ramayana is also mounted on an epic scale and features more than a dozen principal actors. With its expansive cast, visual spectacle and ambitious storytelling, those in the trade believe a trailer exceeding four minutes is a justified choice, allowing the makers to introduce key characters while giving audiences a glimpse of the film’s scale.