10 Most Insane Movie Leaks Ever

Back in 2014, before Quentin Tarantino’s Hateful Eight was even in production, an early draft of his screenplay was leaked online. Tarantino was so irate over the leak that he canceled the film altogether, claiming that he would instead adapt it into a novel. Given that the script was an Agatha Christie-style mystery, it’s hard to not see the irony at the center of the mystery of the script leak: Tarantino was able to narrow down his list of suspects to six people involved with the film, including three of its stars: Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, and Bruce Dern.

Tarantino deduced that one of the “Alleged Six” showed the screenplay to an agent and then someone at the agency scanned the script and leaked it online. The filmmaker eventually gave up his lawsuit against the website that posted the screenplay, and also gave up pursuit of finding out who did it. Instead he went to the William Morris agency and gave a talk to all the agents about integrity, in hopes that whoever did leak the screenplay would learn their lesson. After staging a well-received stage reading of the film, Tarantino was renewed in his faith in the project and went forward with the film.

The story doesn’t end there, though. To add insult to injury, the actual film was then leaked early in its release. This didn’t do too much damage to the film’s grosses, as diehard Tarantino fans are more interested in seeing in on the big screen after viewing it on their laptops.

For his next film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino only printed a handful of hardcopies of the screenplay which he kept in a safe in his home. Only the film’s three lead actors, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie, were allowed to read the entire screenplay front to back, and only while Tarantino was present to keep an eye on them. Talk about pressure to like something you’re reading when not only is was it written by Quentin Tarantino, but he’s sitting right across from you, and you’re in his freaking house!