10 Most Insane Movie Leaks Ever

The Hurt Locker won best picture, as well as best director for Kathryn Bigelow, and made Jeremy Renner a star back in 2009. The film, despite its prestige, never cracked the top 10 weekend box office in the US. A film with its timely subject matter and pulse-pounding bomb disposal scenes should have been a breakout hit, along the lines of Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, which came out 5 years later and made over 10 times as much as The Hurt Locker did.

The Hurt Locker was leaked online as early as 5 months prior to its US release. Some say that the film’s opening in other countries led to its being shared online, but also Bigelow had been showing it at prestigious film festivals a year before the film was set to open. All of these public screenings might have led to how easily it was pirated and shared so many months before its opening, but also showing it around to that many people, that far in advance of its opening may have led to a fizzling out of its buzz by the time it finally premiered.

The producers even tried to sue each individual person who downloaded it, but the case was dropped in court.