Not that we think there’s any accurate way to measure a thing like this, but Fox yesterday upped its estimate for the number of people it claims downloaded the leaked version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine from 1 million to 4 million. If each of those fans had paid movie-ticket prices to watch the pirated, special-effects-less work print, it would’ve added approximately $29 million to the film’s global gross of $175 million last weekend. While certainly nobody thinks the leak helped Wolverine (and obviously there’s no information available on how many of those who downloaded it paid money to see it in a theater), this should come as terrific news to studios who always thought they had to actually finish their movies to make people interested.
Studio ups download figure for pirated Wolverine [Reuters via Movieline]
Earlier: Eight Reasons Not to Download Wolverine