How many actual days pass in "Groundhog Day"?

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Why: I am watching it. I remember reading that Harold Ramis said the whole movie is supposed to take place over the course of 10 years or 20 years or 1,ooo or 5 or 2 or something like that, but I want to know how many separate days you can count in the film.

Answer: 42! But, like, could Phil rob the armored truck and have dinner with Rita the same day? I think maybe he could.

But in case you're wondering, here is the rest of the truth:

The original script began in the middle of the narrative, without explaining how or why Phil was repeating Groundhog Day. The filmmakers became concerned that the audience would feel cheated without seeing Phil's growing realization of the nature of the time loop.

Rubin had also originally envisioned Andie MacDowell's character Rita reliving the day with Phil, and portrayed the pair as being stuck in the time loop for far longer than in the final film, possibly for thousands of years (Phil tracked time by reading a page of a book each day and had managed to read through the entire public library).

There have been widely conflicting reports of how long Phil is trapped in the time continuum. Ramis states in the DVD commentary that he believes 10 years pass. There are 42 accountable days in the film. The website Wolf Gnards projected the time spent as 8 years, 8 months, and 16 days: based on him spending 3 years learning to play the piano, 3 years learning to ice sculpt, 2 years learning French, and 6 months learning to throw cards into a hat. However in an e-mail response to Wolf Gnards, Ramis said "I think the 10-year estimate is too short. It takes at least 10 years to get good at anything, and allotting for the down time and misguided years he spent, it had to be more like 30 or 40 years".

Stephen Tobolowsky said that Ramis told him that he felt that the entire progress of Groundhog Day covered 10,000 years. "I always thought that there were nine days represented [in the film], and Danny Rubin, the writer, said that he felt something like 23 days were represented in the movie, [but they lasted] over 10,000 years."

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: Stephen Tobolowsky's name in Groundhog Day is Ned Ryerson (Needlenose Ned? Ned the Head?). In "Glee," it's Sandy Ryerson. (No, you're not in a time loop - I have blogged this before.)

Did you know this existed in the town where the movie was filmed?