Debuts on BitTorrent tracker sites everywhere a week before its North American release date, but still manages to rake in more than $100 million in overseas box office ticket sales.
It was an interesting weekend for BitTorrent users as CAM copies of “Iron Man 2″ leaked to BitTorrent tracker sites everywhere a week ahead of its official North American release date.
First up was a copy with Russian audio on Saturday, followed yesterday by a decent English dubbed version. Judging from the subtitles, in each case the video was from obvious Russian sources.
None of this seemed to matter to movie fans however, for according to reports they turned out in droves to see the Marvel Entertainment action sequel. The movie raked in some $100.2 million in ticket sales during its international debut over the weekend.
It did matter to Viacom, parent company of Paramount Pictures, the movie studio behind the flic. A spokesman for the company used the news to call for increased govt involvement to “put an end” to piracy.
“This sort of theft is intensely disrespectful and damaging to those who pour their creativity and capital into movies and television,” said the rep. “It is time responsible governments put an end to it.”
It’s the sort of response one would expect from a movie studio. Yet, as usual, the devil is in the details. Hollywood raked in more money last year than ever. before with ticket sales, up astounding 9% from 2008 for a record haul of $10.5 billion USD.
People will always turn out to see quality action movies on the big screen. A Russian CAM copy is unlikely to have any impact on ticket sales. The same happened to “Casino Royal” back in 2006, Russian source and all, and yet it still grossed over $40 million USD in its opening weekend, the second highest opening ever for a Bond movie
Stay tuned.
This may not be the case with the iron man movie itself but it WAS (imho) the case with Hostel 2 and many other movies. The thing is NO ONE will EVER make a crappy movie again. If the movie fails it MUST be piracy. No way could the movie suck, oh no never.
Quite a while back I was cough for copyright infringement for downloading a cam copy of million dollar baby. It was a cam copy which I may say it wasn’t the best (there were people walking in from of the screen and stuff like that) but what surprised me is that fox and like 4 other movie studios (could be just using different studio names) were on by log list by peerguardian 1 at the time but I forgot to turn it on again after I got back on the emule file so I got cought. I was only connected like 15-30 minutes without peerguardian 1 at the time (thats all i took to get a c&d letter. Anyways the movie cam from a direct website (the site was hard coded into the movie so it showed the sites name on the movie the whole time) but it was on emule. I could have just went to the site and direct downloaded it but I found it on emule so I got it there first. It turned out that the movie studios were spreading the file themselves in order to catch down loaders. Being young at the time and not knowing much, I didn’t even think to question the c&d senders because I was told that if I remove the infringing file and state that I would not share it again, I would not be charged. Well I didn’t have the file in question when I got the letter (I was not sharing and had already removed the file) but it only took like 3.5 hours to get my internet shut off and the letter without using peerblock so I guess they emailed it.
What I should have done is ask why they were sharing the movie in the first place if they didn’t want people to have it (the movie companies). I guess live and learn. Also I only knew of slyck.com site and didn’t know where to post the info at the site. I no longer use the sight because lots of the mods there are “know it alls” and if you oppose them (even though you may be right, your account is banned). Ever heard of Fred on there lol troll mod and there are others but they won’t identify themselves if you try to contest anything you just get banned and lots of your stuff removed (standing up to mods they will delete your post to hide how they are nazis).
Anyways the moral of the story is that the movie studios themselves share the material then bust people who download it. Entrapment at its finest.. Also watch emperor of hemp very recommended info.
Most cams suck anyway. If anything the free publicity only helps promote the film. Sales figures seem to support this.
well , especially when it comes to action flics. fans want to see it on the big screen, not a crappy CAM version where u hear the guy breathing and part of the screen is cropped.
I guess the idea is, if the studios keep saying that leaks hurt ticket sales over and over, people and politicians will think it’s true, thereby protecting future projects, they hope. Re-writing actual history.