Wolverine is guaranteed to be a bag of trash with claws carried by Ryan Reynolds. Which is why, ironically, getting leaked to BitTorrent sans special effects is the best thing that could've happened to it.


Despite the studio publicly wailing, they actually have a hit on their hands on now: Over 1 million people have downloaded the rough workprint, which, in terms of DVD sales, that's fantastic. But more than that, "the leak" and "the hunt for the perpetrators" has generated more hype and awareness of the film than the studio could have possibly drummed up in their wildest dreams using legit tactics.


No one was excited about this movie, or even talking about it, murmurs about how meh it looked aside. I mean the helicopter scene in the trailers? Ludicrous, and not in the awesome Luc Besson kind of way either, like a shirtless man sliding around in a vat of motor oil killing a gang of dudes.

Even Fox's chairman Tom Rothman admits, Entertainment Weekly paraphrases, that "the conventional wisdom is that the people who download movies also tend to be the alpha-fans who pay to see the same film multiple times in theaters." And you know what? The non-alpha fans who downloaded it because of press coverage—who might've skipped the flick entirely—are going to see it in theaters just for the train wreck factor: "Is it really gonna be as bad as the version I saw online?"

G/O Media may get a commission LG 75" 8K TV Buy for $2150 from BuyDig Use the promo code ASL250

This, ladies and gentleman is how you create a modern blockbuster. Or at least, that's the theory. We'll know in a couple weeks! [Torrent Freak via Switched]