The duration of Phil's real-time entrapment in the time loop has been the subject of much discussion.
[34][122] Ramis once said that he believed the film took place over 10 years.
[34] When a blogger estimated the actual length to be approximately nine years, Ramis disputed that estimate and his own. He replied that it takes at least 10 years to become good at an activity (such as Phil learning ice sculpting and to speak French) and "allotting for the down-time and misguided years he spent, it had to be more like 30 or 40 years."
[123] A similar estimate suggests that it takes at least 10,000 hours of study (just over a year's worth of time) to become an expert in a field, and given the number of loops seen or mentioned on screen, and how long Phil could spend per day studying, that Phil spent approximately 12,400 days, or nearly 34 years, trapped in the loop.
[122] In Rubin's original concept draft, Phil himself estimates that he has been trapped for between 70 and 80 years, having used books to track the passage of time.
[3]
Born to a Jewish family, Ramis had adopted a
Buddhist lifestyle from his second wife, embracing some of its precepts.
[10][124][125] He said that based on Buddhist doctrine, it takes approximately 10,000 years for a soul to evolve to the next level.
[7]
