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Did The Wolverine Workprint Leak Cost Fox $29 Million?

Posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta

Wolverine

20th Century Fox has released the final download number for the leaked workprint version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and according to THR it turns out to be four times greater than previous estimates. Wolverine has been downloaded an estimated 4 million times according to Fox. But truth be told, Wolverine wasn’t even the top downloaded movie on the internet the week after it hit torrent sites.

With last year’s average ticket price of $7.18, this equates to $28.7 million dollars! But did Fox really lose $29 million dollars due to piracy? The film made a whopping $85 million in its opening weekend, but Fox believes it could have cracked the $100 million mark if it weren’t for the leaked workprint. I call bullshit.

First of all, many of the people who downloaded the workprint weren’t planning on seeing the movie anyways. They downloaded the film because it was available. Many others actually downloaded the film and paid for a ticket to see the finished version on the big screen.

And let’s not forget the group of people that just don’t see films in theaters anymore. I call them the downloaders. They just wait until a copy of the film hits the torrent sites on opening weekend (usually a “cam” copy). That audience never planned to buy a ticket in the first place. And while you might be able to blame piracy for the loss of potential ticket sales from that crowd, you certainly can’t blame the leaked workprint.

So how much did the leak of the film affect the box office? Who knows. Other could argue that the leak provided an extra storm of publicity in worldwide news publications and television shows. It may have created word of mouth buzz from those who did download the movie. The leak could have accounted for more people seeing the film on the big screen than otherwise would have. Of course, I don’t have any facts or figures to support this theory.

But the bottom line is, it isn’t likely that the leaked workprint cost Fox $29 million in ticket sales. I’d love to see a study that would zero in on a more logical number.

Comments

RageTreb

The only people it would have affected are those who were planning to see it in theaters, but after seeing the workprint changed their minds, and THAT would only happen if the movie was shit, which is Fox's fault, not the pirates.

Landfill

I can tell you that it wasn't close to $29 million, I'm thinking more along the lines of $10 to 15 million. I actually thought that before the work print was released, that this film was going to easily break the 100 million dollar mark. I think there is proof that the work print did hurt the opening weekend numbers but I don't think it was close to $30 million.

Movieathome

Maybe one of the biggest reasons people go to the movies less is because of other people. The last three movies I went to were miserable experiences because of others in the audience. Two were midnight showings (two different theaters in two different cities)where small children were brought to rated R flicks. So they screamed the whole time and theater management did nothing. The last was Indiana Jones and there were kids smoking cigarettes during the movie. By the time they were kicked out I was already having an asthma attack. And the movie sucked. This in addition to all the talkers, cell phones, uncomfortable seating, and overpriced concessions.
If I wait until a movie comes out on DVD, no matter how hard I try to avoid it, spoilers will abound and ruin the movie for me. At home I have a kick ass home theater with no kids, no smokers, and beer. If Hollywood really wants my money they'll have to catch up to the fact that there is a growing number of people like me. If your company isn't making money it's not your customers fault. It's your crap business plan.

Sitrom

This piece of shit movie has already made too much money.

Fuckem.

marz

hey did yall see the last easter egg after the credits..after the one with stryker getting arrested..after showing him in the japanese bar..and after the one where deadpool grabs his own head..they showed the the final easter egg: the actual movie COMPLETED!! seems the movie everyone was watching was actualy the work print and you had to stomach that first to see the actual movie! i'm joking of course..sorry,couldn't help myself.

Mike G

I was fully ready to pay to see this movie. When the workprint leaked, I watched it and it sucked, but I was still fully ready to pay to see the movie because we were told that the leak was not the final cut. When it turned out that that was a lie, I lost interest in seeing the movie. These are the same people who, when asked whether Galactus would really be a purple cloud, told us that we would be "pleasantly surprised." No more surprises, Fox/Marvel!

THE_FAN

Answer: no.

AllyndDudnikov

in my case, I didn't plan on seeing Wolverine at all. They trailers looked like shit and the leaked Deadpool images totally made me lose interest..

..However, after Downloading the workprint it occurred to me that the movie was actually pretty good. I liked it, I liked it so much I wanted to actually see what happened with all the green screen footage, I seen it in theatres twice, once just to soak it in, the other to see all of the changes from the workprint (there isn't any aside from CGI and the bonus endings.)

Quintushalls

I think the downloads encouraged sales and made them money! 80+ million dollars is a heck of a lot and even greater opening profit than Star Trek which has more of a buzz. The figure has to be in the negative without the downloads. Of course if it was a decent movie and not crap, yeah, they would have made more money and have a greater multiplier. But Fox didn't consider that, now did they? That is what they should be hitting themselves over, not the piracy!

Corey J

Brendan tends to delete comments that he doesn't agree with . Because he's a fascist ass-hat.

super_aj

i've seen the workprint, and decided not to go see the film specifically because it was terrible. so take that for what its worth, they lost my ticket and the ticket of the guy who showed me the work print.

Juan

If I had actually seen the leaked workprint, I definitely would not have paid to see the movie in theaters. Fox may be onto something, had the workprint not been released people would not have known how meh-tatstic the movie is.

xsageonex

I downloaded the leaked copy, and about 5 people in total saw that copy too, but we all went to the movies opening weekend to watch the final cut---the only type of pirates that are disgusting to me come from Somalia

HollywoodHills

I work in the industry. I think torrent junkies are assholes, who work menial day jobs and could give two shits about all the people who make it their career putting these pictures together. You lazy fucks shouldn't have the right to sit on your asses and steal, (because it is ABSOLUTELY theft) someone's art. Would you walk into Best Buy and just grab a DVD and walk out, because it's the same thing whether you want to address that or not.
If you have no intention on seeing a film in theater wait until it becomes available for rent, or HBO, or just don't see it at all. You pirate fucks are thief's and pure scum with no sense of ethics.

Erik U

Fox estimates that they will lose roughly $80 million over the life of the property due to piracy. Personally I don't think it's possible to tell the ultimate effect but I doubt it will be all that negative. There is a lot of positive pub that could come from a leak which may or may not have happened in the case of Wolverine. Most of the same people who downloaded it probably saw it in the theater as well, or never planned to.

As someone else said the real piracy issue is the new group of people who simply wait for a download and don't bother spending money. These people need to understand that without people spending money on these products they will never be made in the first place.

EconMajor

Did it ever occur to people that the 'new group' that merely downloads the shows does so because they would not go see a movie otherwise?

Let's approach the situation logically:
The quality of cams suck, and screeners/workprints can't be all that common to be released. This means that these 'downloaders', as we'll call them, are willing to watch shitty movies just to avoid paying 5-6 bucks on matinee to see them. This tells me that they wouldn't see the movie AT ALL if they weren't able to watch shitty versions for free.

Assuming this is the case, the movie industry is not actually losing any money by these actions. In fact, a movie that a downloader might otherwise not have seen at all, may be good enough to get them to go to the movie and actually see a good quality version of it (as many people on this comment thread have indicated.)

As for me, I can't be bothered watching shitty cams, and I can't be bothered paying to see movies that are likely going to suck (lets face it, most movies now days are just thrown together because they know they'll make a profit just by releasing them.) I just wait until they go to the dollar theater.

I should have done the same with this movie, but my dad wanted to see it. It was alright, but it wasn't worth 8 bucks. It's all about the dollar theater... $1.50 and less lines... Much better than purchasing the DVD or going right after release!

And for those people claiming intellectual property violation is the same as stealing, they should re-evaluate each of these actions. Stealing means you're taking something away from someone else. You can't take away intellectual property. You can violate whatever restrictions they've placed on the distribution of it, but it's still a theoretical debate as to how much business is actually lost due to it (most studies have shown that people who pirate, pirate things they would not otherwise have purchased to begin with - thus making sales seem like they should be higher than they really would be.)

Reebee7

They should make a movie that doesn't suck. LOTS of people go to see those.

jfive32

Hmmm maybe they lost 29 million because the movie wasnt that great?

juicebox

I think I saw the unfinished workprint... that was the one where Wolverine has those really shitty unfinished CGI claws, right?

Oh, wait, that was the actual movie.

You can't put a number on how much the movie lost b/c the bottom line was that word-of-mouth was fucking toxic. And it wasn't those nay-sayers that saw the print - it was the bloggers that speculated on the reshoots and neutering Gavin Hood's "vision" (whatever it was meant to be) and then the fact that they embargoed critics up until the release of the film - a JV move that screams "our movie sucks!"

And don't base "it should've made $100 million" on X3's performance. X-3 had the awesome goodwill of XMen and X2 behind it. All Wolverine had behind it was... X3.

Anti-Septic

Why blame everything on piracy? If it's a good movie people will go see it, period! I had the opportunity to download it and I chose not to, nothing replaces that big screen experience and somehow popcorn always tastes better at the theater.

If anything the whole leaked video and entire situation generated free mega publicity for this movie. You cannot say an unfinished poor quality print did not peak the interest of said people to go watch the finished product.

Totally ridiculous to think otherwise.

binaryshock

As much a a portion of the community didn't like the film that fact that it was downloaded and watched that often before release and still made that amount of money. It could have been a lot worst, Wolverine could have been Watchmened, and got tanked through word of mouth.

And Fox trying to put a number without showing thier math in this situation is very very sad a suspect.

Alec

Fox shouldn't be complaining anymore. They made enough money worldwide to pay back their production budget on the film. They're going to do fine even if it's a shitty movie.

shatner

why do all the bloggers on this site find the need to swear in their articles? And yh the film wasn't great. The special effects were rubbish

obsolete-vernacular

Are you fucking kidding me? I can't imagine a better use of the word bullshit. Not to mention this IS Peter's site and he can say anything he pleases. /Film is one of the most "professional" movie related wedsites on the interwebs. Show the man some respect.

Sitrom

I like swearing.

Fucking love it.

Peter Sciretta

I've sworn on the site maybe 15-20 times in the last 3 years. I wouldn't consider that often at all. I agree that swearing can be overused but when done right, it can be used to put extra emphasis on a feeling, as is the case with the "bullshit" in this blog post.

Enrique Garcia

To be fair, it's PETER who came up with the $29mil figure, not Fox... Fox said "4 million downloads". Which I think would include international downloads as well. And, as I had said in a previous Wolverine leak article hear, I'm sure some of those "downloads" are incomplete... overzealous downloaders with inferior internet connections who give up after downloading for an hour and only getting 100mb.

But to my point... where did Fox come up with "4 million" downloads? What's their source? How is it they can pinpoint how many times a file they did not create gets downloaded, but they can do nothing to prevent it? It stands to reason that if they can pinpoint this number, they can do something about it.

Craigasorusrex

So what the movie sucked. Fox can complain all they want.

The fact is they made a pretty bad movie now this weekend I'm sure earnings are going to plunge quickly. Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation will make sure to remove XO: W from the memory of most.

ocentertainment

I'd like to have a sit down conversation with some of the executives who come up with this crap about timeline theories. You can't simply remove a single event (such as a leaked workprint) from a timeline, and expect that everything else will go the way you anticipate it will. Heck, you can't even expect to remove a single event and expect all the other events that did occur, to occur in this new, modified timeline.

I think Hollywood is watching too many of it's own movies. Pirates are gonna pirate and theater-goers are gonna go to a theater. If -IF- someone who *would've* gone to pay for a movie in a theater decides to watch a crappy, downloaded pre-release *instead* (as opposed to in addition to), then you can bet that the money, for their part, was an important part of that decision making process. They thought long and hard about that $10. Which means their mind had to weigh the cost and the benefit. That's the spot where you can get customers in, by convincing them of the quality of your product. And you will not win them all.

Claiming that such-and-such a single event caused you to lose $29 million dollars, even if it is true (which it cannot possibly be), is immature, and appears incredibly lame. Sorry, if you think that piracy is stealin' all ur millions. This is what the world is now. Deal with it. Either make a better product (I'm sorry, I liked Wolverine, and I still thought some of those effects were horribly half-assed), or get out of the business.

eh?

piracy rate usually reflects how well the movie actually did in theaters.

Dark Knight is the best example.

RNL

I love how self-righteous some people get when they talk about piracy. Violators of intellectual property rights are "disgusting" "scumbags". Sums it up alright.

Sick thrilla

I call bullshit too. The movie made as much money as it was going to with or without the leak. The movie was decent, but not worthy of a $100 million weekend.

Sergemeister

For the record; I actually paid to see this movie because I heard how bad the leaked workprint was. I couldn't believe it. So I had to see it for myself. I know at least two others that paid to see this for the exact same reason. I'm sure we're not alone.

Octoberist

i really don't think Wolverine will have repeat viewers. Once is enough even with the 'secret endings'.

ryan

I'm gonna blame wolverine's wife/gf. Who was she? couldn't they have gotten a better actress in that role. At least a better looking actress.

As someone who saw the workprint and did not see it in the movies, I was not gonna go to the movies to see it, workprint or no workprint. I did see each X-Men movie in theaters and wasn't impressed.

The workprint ending was terrible. Lots of stuff missing. That being said, I had no desire to see it in the theaters. Star Trek, Angels and Demons and Terminator Salvation are films I will go to the theaters and see.

Delta Assault

Dude, she looked alright.

Way better then Maggie Gyllenhall anyways.

ryan

I'm probably in the minority here, but there's something about Maggie that's really fuckin' hot.

srdailey

i was never planning on seeing this dog in the theatre, maybe add it to my netflix queue. theoretically, if i just mail it back right after receiving it, fox has lost no money from my download.

dee

I just one have remark... Their 4 million 'downloads' - which is an impossible number to get, to be able to determine downloads to a single end user on all torrent sites / all streaming sites / fxpboards / warez sites etc...

And secondly.. the internet is global.. who knows how big a percentage of that 4 million they claim is actually in the US.. most of them probably are outside and would never have counted to the US box office.

Just my 2 cents..

shameless

id say if the story was better and the effects werent tacky, then it would have made more money.

Dan823

id say it had minimal effect.

Sean W.

The leak is was got my attention back on the movie. I would never have seen it had it not gotten all that publicity (no matter how mediocre). I downloaded it as well but never watched it, instead went to the theater.

TheDaftPunk

I'd say it probably could have cracked $100 mil.

Cypher

It might have cost a few mill but who knows.Havent seen it yet but i will probably see it in a few days.Not all go to the openings.

Keyser Söze

No one will ever know if Wolverine would have cracked $100 million, though calling Fox's theory bullshit isn't right.

I know a number of groups who downloaded the workprint and watched it with a number of friends at house-held "screenings". I'm assuming being downloaded 4 million times does not account for the thousands upon thousands of people who streamed the movie online through websites. Additionally, it doesn't count for an individual who downloaded the movie and screened it in front of a dozen or so friends. $29 million could be a pretty optimistic loss in money.

justinlecair

I totally agree. As much as people want to slam this movie, I found it to be fun and my kids loved it. However, whether people liked it or not, I happen to know for a fact that Wolverine has an enormous following and a large chunk of that following saw the leaked workprint. Furthermore, after speaking with my kids' friends, I know that a few of them didn't rush to the theater on account of the fact that they already saw it online. To say that Fox's claim is bullshit is quite presumptuous if you ask me. I don't know enough to speculate as to how much they lost exactly, but I'm certain of the fact that the leak hurt the opening weekend box office.

Peter Sciretta

The fox figure takes into account all piracy, including the streaming websites...

Tyler J

I downloaded Wolverine 3 times in two different locations. I also paid to see the movie twice (with friends and with my father). I'm a huge pirate, too, and I'm pretty sure there are MANY more out there like me.

So, no, I'm sure they didn't even lose $5M in sales.

Tyler J

I would like to say that I thought the movie was VERY mediocre and NOT worth the 15$ I paid. I ended up deleting the files for the WP because I don't care to watch it again for a very long time.

Wintrale

Bah, what's a few tens of millions to Fox, anyway? They probably make that in a week from adverts on TV. :p

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