Pirates of the Hostel part 2
0 Comments Published by Steven Friedman on Friday, June 08, 2007 at 1:40 PM.
Something wicked this way comes. If you're a horror-fan, like me, and surf the internets for horror movie news on a regular basis, like me, you're probably aware of a little film called Hostel: Part II causing quite a stir among horror-lovers and -haters alike.Part of the fuss has to do with the film being nothing more than a vehicle for sensationalistic 'torture porn' (the word du jour in horror circles) and thus crossing the line of what's morally acceptable. I'll delve a little deeper into that particular subject in another post. Right now, I'd like to tackle another issue this film (or rather, a bootleg copy of it) has raised: do pirated copies of high-profile movies, released prior to the official premiere of those films, have an effect on box office receipts?
Now, far be it from me to abet film piracy in any way (it's an industry that pays my bills, after all), I do think today's U.S. release of Hostel: Part II will prove to be an interesting 'test case' for the ongoing debate on illegal downloading.
As you may or may not know, a DVD screener copy (called a workprint by some and the finished article by others) of the Hostel-sequel has been circling the bittorents and other peer2peer-filesharing networks for quite a while now. It's out there. And looking at the stats of some trackers, seeing the stupendous amount of seeds and peers, it's clear to me that one little slipup at Lionsgate (sending a screener copy to the wrong guy) may have cost them the majority of their potential target audience - and, as a result; millions of dollars in revenue.
Or has it?
You see, this is where it gets interesting. As I've said, I absolutely do not condone film piracy, but... I'm not big on lies and hypocrisy either. Ever since this 'online sharing of pirated movies'-thing really took off somewhere in the early years of this millennium, the big studios especially were quick to jump on the 'this is costing us trillions'-bandwagon. Now I'm not saying this couldn't be the case, BUT looking at the box office grosses of big films (which are said to suffer the most from piracy), I actually find it hard to believe online piracy makes much of a difference, revenue-wise. Pirates: 225 million and counting, Shrek: 260 million and counting, Spider-Man: 320 million and counting.
The list goes on and on. ALL these titles have one or more illegal copies floating around on the internet. Some of those are even DVD quality releases. How is it possible then, that these blockbusters still manage to sell that many cinema-tickets?
The reason why I think Hostel: Part II poses such an interesting case in this regard, is because the key demographic for this film (18 to 35 year olds) also composes a large part (if not the lion's share) of the online p2p-sharing community.
If the MPAA and studios are right, Hostel: Part II will bomb like a Howard the Duck-sequel this weekend. After all, most of the target audience would have already seen the film, illegaly.
If Hostel: Part II DOES make 30 million+ these next few days, I think a new chapter in the online piracy-debate will open up. It means that a lot of people who downloaded the illegal copy, ALSO bought a ticket at the box office.
Now there's something to gasp about.
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