LOS ANGELES — Conventional wisdom in Hollywood has long held that big, lumbering “tentpole” movies require protracted promotional campaigns.

Walt Disney Studios spent more than three years promoting “Tron: Legacy,” which came out in 2010. Warner Bros. began beating the drums for “Godzilla” nearly two years before its 2014 release. Universal Pictures first publicized “The Secret Life of Pets 2” in August 2016; it arrived last month.

But moviedom’s top three marketers, who together control more than $4 billion in annual advertising spending worldwide, say that drawn-out campaigns no longer make sense for most movies. With studio slates now dominated by franchises, these executives are moving in the opposite direction, tightening efforts to as little as four or five months for major releases like “Aquaman,” “Avengers: Endgame” and the coming “Cats.”

“We’re living in an on-demand society where people don’t like to wait,” said Michael Moses, Universal’s president of worldwide marketing, citing the rise of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Spotify. “The long journey you used to be able to take the audience on — a teaser to a trailer to TV over a year or longer — isn’t as available anymore.”

Shorter campaigns are becoming “the new normal,” he said. His push for “Cats” started this week with the release of a provocative trailer that tore across the internet. “Cats,” a big-budget adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, will arrive in theaters on Dec. 20. Universal is also planning more compact advertising windows for “Minions: The Rise of Gru” and “Fast & Furious 9,” both due next year.

“There’s an entire generation that is very skilled at skipping marketing,” Mr. Moses said. “They don’t see television advertising. They can easily navigate around it in the digital space. But what does grab their attention is new content, especially that first trailer. So you are better off waiting until you can really pack a punch.”

Blair Rich, Warner’s worldwide marketing chief, said that she started to recalibrate campaign length after analyzing how materials were reverberating online.

“We found we could do much, much better — creating a lot less material and more strategically timing the material to connect with our target audience,” she said. “If we’re not re-examining the way that we put movies out to market, how we use our dollars, how we talk to an audience, we’re not doing our jobs.”

Ms. Rich gave “Aquaman” a five-month campaign last year, a gutsy move for a movie about a character without the profile of a Batman or Superman. The result was striking: $1.1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. To compare, “Suicide Squad,” released by Warner in 2016 to $747 million in ticket sales, had a 13-month campaign.

“When you start campaigns so far out, you are basically turning a machine on, turning it off and then restarting it again,” Ms. Rich said. “We’re more interested in starting late, having a very high peak right at the start, and then having a very consistent pulse rate, crescendoing at the end.”

For the year, Warner is second in domestic market share. Universal is a whisper behind. The leader is Disney, where Asad Ayaz runs worldwide marketing.

“The thinking used to be that you had to keep the fan base constantly excited — show a special-effects test two years out,” Mr. Ayaz said. “We now think it makes sense to create those moments not that far in advance.”

Mr. Ayaz cited “Avengers: Endgame” as an example of a late-breaking campaign. The promotional onslaught started in December, and the Marvel movie arrived in theaters in late April. “Endgame” took in $2.8 billion worldwide.

Disney has truncated campaigns for Marvel movies for three reasons. Certain characters — Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk — already command significant audience awareness. Because Marvel movies have been arriving at a steady clip, one organically promotes the next. Long promotional pushes would also overlap, resulting in fan confusion, Mr. Ayaz said.

It is notable that Mr. Ayaz, Ms. Rich and Mr. Moses were each named to their positions last year, amounting to generational change. The new regime — under more pressure to control costs than their predecessors — is more comfortable with internet analytics and adjusting marketing plans accordingly.

With better data tools, “we’re really able to find the audience and put materials under its nose,” Mr. Moses said. “You’re not doing as much shouting into a hurricane and hoping someone hears you.”

Shorter does not necessarily mean less. “Endgame” may have started late, but the advertising bombardment was aggressive when it did arrive. The biggest Universal movies receive a three-week barrage of “symphony” marketing support leading up to release from other NBCUniversal divisions, which include cable networks and theme parks.

And the marketing chiefs emphasized that one size does not fit all. There will continue to be different timelines for different films. Universal has given “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” a longer campaign, in part because it’s a spinoff and not a sequel. Mr. Moses released the first trailer for “Trolls World Tour” in June — the animated movie does not arrive until April — in part because Universal wants to expand the “Trolls” audience beyond primarily young girls.

“It’s different for different films and different filmmakers,” Ms. Rich said. “It may not work every time, and it also may be temporary — it could shift again.”

Adding to the squishiness, studios measure campaign length in different ways. Most consider the first trailer the start; others count teaser posters and early magazine photo spreads as the kickoff.

But the trend is pronounced. Look at how studios have changed their approach to Comic-Con International, the annual convention for pop culture enthusiasts that began on Thursday in San Diego. The carnival-like event, which ends on Sunday, was once seen by Hollywood’s top marketers as a crucial launching pad. It’s where Disney pushed “Tron: Legacy” for three years running starting in 2008.

This year, Universal, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures and Lionsgate decided not to mount presentations.

“It’s not because we don’t completely worship the fans,” Ms. Rich said. “It’s because Comic-Con forces our hand on the timing of campaigns.”

She pointed to “Wonder Woman 1984,” which Warner plans to release in June. Instead of flying the sequel’s director (Patty Jenkins) and star (Gal Gadot) to Comic-Con to unveil footage, as it most likely would have in the past, Warner had Ms. Jenkins post a teaser image on Twitter.

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