EXCLUSIVE: Theatrical titles on PVOD, as opposed to pure streaming/theatrical day-and-date movies, continued to top the most shared movies among online pirates over the last week; Venom: Let There Be Carnage remaining the top title for the second week in a row, while 20th Century Studios/Disney's The Last Duel from Ridley Scott ranking second and capturing over 17% of the top ten's share of views.
This is all according to MUSO which tracks the most pirated movies out there for the studios, and the most-torrented movies and TV titles for the week of Nov. 29 to Dec. 5. Torrent is defined as the most-shared files between piracy peer-to-peer networks.
The Last Duel, starring Adam Driver, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Jodie Comer died at the box office with under $11M stateside and just over $30M WW at a production cost of $100M. The movie opened on Oct. 15 in the U.S. and dropped on PVOD on Dec. 1. While the Scott-directed title was hailed by critics at 85% certified fresh and notched an OK CinemaScore of B+, the movie was challenged in its heavy storyline which shows the rape of a French noble's wife and the aftermath from three different points of view. Not to mention, the movie demanded a lot from an adult audience in October whose concerns were still with the pandemic; The Last Duel being 2 hours and 32 minutes long. Scott's second adult feature in the fall, House of Gucci, fared better posting the best for an adult drama during the pandemic with a $22M 5-day opening, and current $34.6M domestic running total, an awards contender which is projected to see its way to $70M stateside. That movie, though 2 hours and 38 minut es, was pumped by Thanksgiving moviegoers. The Last Duel topped Apple iTunes top rented movies for the week, while Sony's Venom: Let There Be Carnage continued to gross at the domestic box office, ranking 11th with $1M in its 10th weekend for a running total near $211M.
Other new movies breaking into Muso's top 10 pirated included 20th Century Studios animated Ron's Gone Wrong in the No. 7 spot and Paramount+'s South Park: Post Covid in the No. 9 spot. Ron's Gone Wrong recently arrived on PVOD while South Park: Post Covid dropped on Paramount+ on Nov. 25.
Yesterday, Samba TV reported that Netflix's Jane Campion movie The Power of the Dog pulled in 1.2M U.S. households in its first five days of release. The pic is not in Muso's top ten pirated films of the week, however, anecdotally we noticed Power of the Dog being shared on piracy torrent sites during its festival debuts at Venice and TIFF back in September, the latter fest offering up a hybrid theatrical and online showing of the Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, and Kodi Smit-McPhee western drama.
Meanwhile, Disney+'s Hawkeye remains the most trafficked title for pirates in its second week, the MCU show dropping a third episode on Dec. 1.
What's new among the most shared TV titles among pirates? While all of the 'it' shows like Amazon's Wheel of Time, HBO's Succession (which will have its third season finale on Sunday, Dec. 12) , Paramount+'s Dexter: New Blood and Star Trek: Discovery season 4 remain, Seal Team season 5 which is exclusively on the latter streamer as of Oct. 10 landed in 9th place this week. Netflix's season 3 of Lost in Space which dropped its entire season on the streamer on Dec. 1, ranks 10th.
London-based MUSO is a data company that provides a complete view of global piracy and unlicensed media consumption. The analytics outfit measures global piracy, monitoring all major forms of piracy activity including streaming, web downloads, public and private torrents, and stream rippers. MUSO's data drives content protection, audience measurement and monetization.