3 high school seniors throw a birthday party so boss it apparently got shared/downloaded almost 9 million times — apparently making it the #1 pirated movie of of 2012. Congratulations to the filmmakers and studio not seeing a penny of those grosses? They don't need it, right? Torrent Freak compiled a list of the most shared movies on BitTorrent in 2012. Leading at number one is “Project X,” the Todd Phillips-produced/Warner Bros.-distributed party comedy that actually features no stars (in fact if the average pleeb can name an actor in the cast off the top of their head without the aid of Google, hats off to them).
A found-footage film, shot on a shoestring budget (though never reported), "Project X" grossed $100 million internationally. To think if the studio would have figured to a way to charge even a meager $2 for each download, they'd be looking at approximately another $17 million in revenue. Kids wanna see other kids create mayhem, they apparently just don't wanna pay for it.
Right behind at number two was "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol" (Tom Cruise felt a gnat of concern for a second and thought, "whatever, moving on,") and "The Dark Knight Rises" at number three. Illegally downloading movies is a crime kids. The entire list below.
| rank | movie | est. downloads | worldwide grosses |
|---|---|---|---|
| torrentfreak.com | |||
| 1 | Project X | 8,720,000 | $100,931,865 |
| 2 | Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol | 8,500,000 | $694,713,380 |
| 3 | The Dark Knight Rises | 8,230,000 | $1,081,041,287 |
| 4 | The Avengers | 8,110,000 | $1,511,757,910 |
| 5 | Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows | 7,850,000 | $543,848,418 |
| 6 | 21 Jump Street | 7,590,000 | $201,585,328 |
| 7 | The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo | 7,420,000 | $232,617,430 |
| 8 | The Dictator | 7,330,000 | $177,547,352 |
| 9 | Ice Age: Continental Drift | 6,960,000 | $875,093,094 |
| 10 | The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1 | 6,740,000 | $712,171,856 |