20th Century Fox has said that an unfinished pirated version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine has been downloaded some 4 million times.
The illegal copy became available on the internet on March 30. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “at last year’s average ticket price of $7.18, the piracy could conceivably – though not likely – have cost Fox $28.7 million.”
The question really is: do these illegal downloads stop people from going to the cinema or are they a rather clever way of promoting the movie at the box office? Especially since this is an unfinished version of the movie. And sure enough, taking in $85 million Wolverine scored a better opening weekend than any other movie this year.
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