Theater owners suggest  the  “Bolt” spot intruded on their screen time and  made “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” run long costing time they   could fill — with other showings or their own commercials.

Some of the nation’s top theater chains complained to Disney that the extended trailer violated a long-standing agreement about where trailers can be placed and how long they can run. Disney maintains that the preview is in fact a “featurette,” a mini-film not unlike the award-winning animated shorts that Disney and Pixar put ahead of their animated features.

It is unclear how many theater owners showed or are showing the spot, one theater owner said he believed a majority of theaters refused to show it.

While there is no firm policy on the number of trailers that can run before a movie, there are voluntary and codified rules about how long those previews can last. “The length of a trailer must not exceed two minutes, thirty seconds,” says the MPAA 2006 Advertising Handbook.

Each studio is granted one exemption to run a longer preview once a year, which is usually reserved for an Oscar movie. But because Disney considered the “Bolt” promotion to be a short film, the studio did not consider it subject to the time limitation.

Clearly the run away success of  ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua’ gives Disney leverage over the theaters, one does wonder why Disney is pouring so much into the Bolt release?