Why Australia Will Be Pirating The LEGO: Batman Movie

On February 10 2017, audiences around the world will be sitting down in cinemas to watch the much anticipated LEGO: Batman movie. 48 days later, Australians can do the same.

Village Roadshow is repeating history, making the same mistake it made with The LEGO Movie. A five million dollar mistake. A mistake co-CEO Graham Burke said the distributor would not be making again.

Everything is not awesome.

@BrickingAround LEGO Batman will be released in Australia on 30th March, 2017. — Roadshow Films (@RoadshowFilms) December 5, 2016

Piracy of The LEGO Movie cost Village Roadshow “somewhere between $3.5 and $5 million in sales” Burke revealed at a government-led Copyright Forum back in September 2014.

“We made one hell of a mistake with LEGO,” Burke said of the decision to delay The LEGO Movie‘s release in Australia by 54 days.

“We’ll now make all our movies day in date with the US. I know 20th Century Fox are and Universal are too.”

Adding insult to injury both films were created here by Animal Logic, and the CEO Zareh Nalbandian has spoken out about piracy in the past, expressing a wish to teach kids about the impacts of piracy on creators before they become teenagers and stop caring.

So why, two years later, is this happening again? Expect to hear reasons like “school holidays” and “maximising audiences” being floated, but we’ve reached out to Village Roadshow for an official comment.