
Warner Bros. attribute part of The Dark Knight's success at the box office to the 38 hours they managed to prevent a bootlegged copy hitting the net after the premiere.
Studios fear a reprise of the "Hulk" piracy debacle. A rough, early version of Ang Lee's 2003 summer movie made its way to the Internet two weeks before the film's scheduled premiere, provoking negative reactions from the comic-book film's devoted fans, whose opinion carries far more weight in determining the success of this film genre than that of mainstream film critics.
Extreme security measures were taken, tracking who had access to the film, staggering delivery of reels and varying shipping methods so the entire movie wouldn't arrive at movie theaters in one shipment. Clearly they did a good job at delaying the inevitable pirating but the film's opening weekend success is probably more to do with it being a kick-ass movie.
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WOW! So what the studios are saying is not that pirating directly contributes to bad sales, but that it allows for unbiased reviews of their product prior to release! I don't think any "piracy countermeasures" are going to prevent a crappy movie from not selling. It looks like the only reason Dark Knight boxed so well was because it didn't suck.