Around the time of the early to mid-noughties, there seemed to be a popular trend of film studios releasing finished back-to-back sequels at the cinema several months apart. Examples of this include 'Kill Bill' volume 1 & 2, the 'The Matrix' sequels and most notably the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy; each of which hit the big screen at Christmas time for three consecutive years. A decade later this decision has been repeated for the associated 'Hobbit' trilogy, due to conclude at the end of this; the third and final year.
However, this trend is not quite as new as you might think. There are previous examples, though more out of a need than a want to separate releases. An early Chinese film which unfortunately no longer exists,'The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple' (1928), had a total runtime of around 27 hours and had to be screened in a number of sittings over several years. Similarly, the 1957 Russian Revolution movie 'And Quiet Flows the Don' was shorter at around 5 hours but still saw a separated release.
There were also cases prior to the digital age of cinema where theatres in remote areas could only show so much of certain movie releases, due to them having not received all of the reels. In this case the cinema and audience had to resume the film at a later date when the rest of the spools had arrived. As most of the films released today are filmed digitally onto hard disk drives rather than traditional celluloid film, the cost of updating projection technology suggests that some of these areas may still not be able to see some of the latest releases.
