The top ten most pirated movies of the year

By Paul Tassi

Posted 16 years ago

Movie news is slow as everyone is currently relaxing for the holidays, so we’re turning to yearly lists and such, and one I thought it would be interesting to take a look at would be the most pirated films of the year.

The list was compiled by TorrentFreak, and you might be surprised with a couple of titles, though most are expected. What is a pirate’s taste in movies?

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1. Avatar

Downloads – 16,580,000 Gross – $2,779,551,867

2. Kick-Ass

Downloads – 11,400,000 Gross – $96,130,432

3. Inception

Downloads – 9,720,000 Gross – $825,408,570

4. Shutter Island

Downloads – 9,490,000 Gross – $294,803,014

5. Iron Man 2

Downloads – 28,810,000 Gross – $621,751,988

6. Clash of the Titans

Downloads – 8,040,000 Gross – $493,214,993

7. Green Zone

Downloads – 7,730,000 Gross – $94,875,650

8. Sherlock Holmes

Downloads – 7,160,000 Gross – $523,029,864

9. The Hurt Locker

Downloads – 6,850,000 Gross – $48,612,915

10. Salt

Downloads – 6,700,000 Gross – $175,190,850

I was a little surprised to see GREEN ZONE and SALT make the cut, but the rest really are no surprise. These are the kinds of numbers a studio will then trot out and say “oh look, we lost $280M in ticket sales for IRON MAN 2” or “there go $140M in DVD sales for SHERLOCK HOLMES.” But the fact is, this is BS, and I’m willing to be there are relatively few pirates who download a movie rather than seeing it in the theater, as often they’ll do both, and a similarly small amount of would download it instead of buying the DVD. Just because you think SALT is worth watching because it’s free, does not mean you think it’s worth watching if it’s $10. And if you wanted to buy the DVD for $20? Chances are you already saw it in theaters and really, really loved it.

It’s hard to tell what these numbers really mean. There are losses from piracy yes, but they are far smaller than the studios would have you believe. Remember that campaign where they’d have a set painter talk to you about how he was getting fired because you pirated? That always pissed me off. How about you cut your star’s salary by half a million to pay for 10 people doing his job, or don’t spend $10M in promotional costs stamping Iron Man on the side of Pepsi products.

Source: TorrentFreak

About the Author

Paul Tassi

1,927 Articles Published

Favorite Movies: Memento, Battle Royale, American Psycho, Gladiator, The Orphanage, Sunshine, The Ring, read more The Prestige, A New Hope, The Last Crusade, Snatch, Fight Club, 300, Evil Dead 2, The Matrix, 500 Days of Summer, The Lion King, Shaun of the Dead, The Dark Knight, Love Actually, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Likes: Macaroni and Cheese, Pen and Ink, Soccer and Tennis, Halo and read more Smash Bros, Rum and Coke, Mila Kunis and Kristin Kreuk

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