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Army of Thieves will premiere on Netflix this Friday, hoping to keep up with the success of Army of the Dead. While millions of people will be watching legally, hackers have already gotten a head start. In the last few hours, a very good copy has landed on pirate sites. It was followed by high-quality leaks of Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, Apex, and Lamb.
Making movies readily available on official streaming services was supposed to be the silver bullet to beating piracy, but these things aren’t always that simple.
To improve the chances of success, subscriptions should also be priced fairly and when movies come out there should be no waiting around waiting for a movie window to close encouraging piracy.
All of these were part of the plan when Netflix delivered Zack Snyder’s Army to the Dead in May. Easily accessible, reasonably priced, with a very small gap between theatrical release and streaming debut, things seemed to be going smoothly.
This October 29, Netflix will release Army of Thieves, the prequel to Army of the Dead. It’ll tick all of the anti-piracy boxes from the first installment, but that hasn’t stopped the movie from leaking online.
Army of Thieves appears on pirate websites
A few hours ago, rumors began to circulate that Army of Thieves had leaked online, days before its release on Netflix. Reviews have indicated that this is a very good copy and not something from some grainy physical or online source. It’s now confirmed that the movie did leak at 1080p, with one version tagged as WEBRip and the other a much more wanted WEB-DL.
The latter is generally preferred because they are digital files downloaded from streaming services, not lower quality screenshots produced locally. It’s a bit early to say for sure, but rumors of decent quality are likely to be true, according to the screenshots leaked below.
But just like London buses, you wait for a leak, and then several more arrive at the same time.
Paranormal activity: next of kin… and more
In the wake of Army Of Thieves, several other films have been leaked on torrent and streaming sites, mostly ahead of their official release dates. Again, all of them appear to have been published in WEB-DL and / or WEBRip qualities.
As the seventh installment and reboot of the Paranormal Activity series, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin was slated for a theatrical release in March 2021, but the coronavirus pandemic has pushed that back to March 2022.
Earlier this year, it was announced that the film would be released exclusively on Paramount + on October 29, but that has now been canceled by hackers, who leaked the film a few hours ago. Again, the quality looks good.
The Icelandic drama film Lamb premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and was released in Iceland on September 24. The film began a limited theatrical release on October 8 in the United States, but viewers in European countries could wait until January 2022 to legally watch it. Those who prefer not to wait now have another option, however.
Finally, hackers have also leaked Bruce Willis’ new movie “Apex” in the last few hours. The action thriller is slated for release on November 12, but once again the Hackers have done better, this time by a few weeks.
While the leaks are controversial enough, they are made more interesting by the fact that one obscure and prolific group has taken responsibility for all of them.
P2P Release Group EVO strikes again
To give just a handful of examples, in October last year, P2P broadcast group EVO leaked screening copies of the Falling and My Salinger Year movies online. In September, EVO was also responsible for the leak of the Netflix films The Power of the Dog and The Guilty, which were apparently ripped from festival screens.
Then, days before the new Dune movie was set to enjoy its US release on HBO Max this month, EVO also leaked a copy. This week, they’re responsible for the leaking of several more, including Army of Thieves, something Netflix probably shouldn’t be celebrating.
Times have changed and flight can’t cause chaos
While there’s no doubt that Army of the Dead fans will be excited to watch the prequel, the pre-release leaks of movies set to appear on Netflix likely avoid many of the issues others have faced. with more complex output models, such as Lamb.
First, Netflix has over 200 million subscribers and when household and account sharing is factored in, the platform’s reach is much more than that. As a result, all customers who intended to watch the movie on Friday can still do so, without resorting to hacking. The other bonus is that there is no theatrical window to disrupt or destroy.
While its model offers some protection, the downside to Netflix is that new movie releases can attract new subscribers. The leak probably won’t do too much damage in that regard, but Netflix has gotten a lot more aggressive on the piracy front lately, so it might have the final say.
