DVD walas in Karachi are having a Merry season indeed. Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘The Revenant’ and Quentin Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’, two of the year’s biggest newly-released blockbusters, have already found their way online, and into our dukaans.
Both are available in ‘master 5.1’ copies — an exceptional print for early releases. Other Hollywood leaks readily available in the market include blockbusters: ‘Creed’, ‘In the Heart of the Sea’, ‘Steve Jobs’, and the Will Smith-starrer ‘Concussion’.
Though movie piracy is nothing new, this has to be one of the worst cases to hit Hollywood in decades. Normally, early DVD releases when available, are limited to ‘camera copies’ (as in shot by a guy in the cinema with a handheld camera). Last year, a copy of ‘The Expendables 3’ found its way online ahead of its cinematic release. The film was downloaded an estimated 10 million times, causing it to lose out on roughly $250 million in revenue.
With The Hateful Eight’s cinematic release just under a week ago, we may very likely see a repeat of this scenario. TorrentFreak reports the film has already been shared more than a million times, something that definitely won’t sit well with the film’s producers.