“The Hurt Locker” distributor Summit Entertainment LLC will expand the Oscar-winning movie by more than 25 percent. The film will play in 348 theaters in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, up from 274 last weekend, Paul Pflug, an outside spokesman for Los Angeles-based Summit, said yesterday in an e- mail.

The increase was smaller than some analysts anticipated after the film won six Academy Awards, including best picture, on March 7. The limited expansion is consistent with theater chains’ usual policy “not to re-release films that have already entered the home-entertainment marketplace,” Pflug said.

“The Hurt Locker” has taken in an estimated $14.7 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to researcher Box Office Mojo. With the expansion, the movie is likely to generate less than $1 million in additional revenue this weekend, said Gitesh Pandya, editor of Box Office Guru LLC in New York. Through the end of its theater run, domestic box-office sales are unlikely to surpass $20 million, he said.

“This is not a big, significant expansion,” Pandya said a telephone interview. “There’s not really a track record for an older film that wins an Oscar” to accelerate more significantly at the box office.

The movie has taken in $21.4 million in global ticket sales since its June 26 release, according to Box Office Mojo, a researcher based in Sherman Oaks, California. It still has a chance to reach $35 million to $40 million worldwide through the end of its theater run, David Joyce, an analyst with Miller Tabak & Co. in New York, said in an e-mail.

Opportunity ‘Hurt’

He had estimated earlier this week that the movie could reach $40 million if it expanded to 1,000 theaters.

“DVD sales and rentals since nominations were announced hurt the box-office opportunity,” Joyce said.

“The Hurt Locker” DVD sales spiked at Amazon.com Inc. following the 82nd Annual Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. The Iraq war drama won best original screenplay and best director for Kathryn Bigelow, and is the most-rented movie on Seattle-based Amazon’s video-on-demand service today.

Summit sold 780,000 copies of the movie, including electronic downloads, since it became available in the home- video market on Jan. 12. “The Hurt Locker” has been rented 3.9 million times from stores and 1.5 million times through video- on-demand, Summit said.

Amazon climbed $1.69 to $130.51 today in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have dropped 3 percent this year. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, increased $1.82 to $224.84 and has advanced 6.7 percent this year.

--With assistance from Crayton Harrison in Mexico City and Michael White in Los Angeles. Editors: Anthony Palazzo, Elizabeth Wollman