UPDATED: The Expendables 3 Has Leaked

Updated 2x: One week later, the first talk of lawsuits is here.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, LionsGate is pursuing at least 10 lawsuits against various websites.

Updated: We have an update on this.  Although unverified, word is that due to the leak, The Expendables 3 found its way to a large streaming site in Portugal, where it is now de-facto being aired for free.  Because of this, the marketing campaign in Portugal has been pulled and The Expendables 3, it seems, has effectively suffered a premature death in that country.  Billboards, posters etc have allegedly been deemed financially inexpedient in the run up to release.  While Portugal is a small country, it does raise questions about the performance of the movie elsewhere.  Australia for example made DTV work of recent Stallone/Schwarzenegger movies, even without leaks.  Will something similar happen here?

Previously: The Expendables 3 has leaked.  We were going to put a piece up on that last night, but decided to wait, lest fanboys come at us accusing us of promulgating the affair.  Well now it’s well and truly out in the wild, viral.  The horse has fled the barn.

Within hours the movie had already been downloaded 100,000 times from torrent trackers alone, who knows what that figure is at now.  On Sylvester Stallone’s official forums, one user noted that his daughter brought The Expendables 3 home on DVD from dance class, where a pirate was selling it from his car for 2 bucks.  Users on that same forum are reporting that it’s already on YouTube.

The feedback coming in from the leak – on forums and social media – is scathing.  Complaints are that the movie has suffered censorship castration, with cutaways harshly sullying what were hitherto acts of violence.  Illegal downloaders are upset that the movie has a cast that is not used properly, with big names like Arnold Schwarzenegger seeing little screentime over its 126 minutes.  None of this is going to do a movie which has suffered questionable promotion any favors.

With that said, what now, and how will it affect the movie?

First let us look at a similar situation.  X-Men Origins: Wolverine suffered a similar setback in 2009.  That movie hit the net months before it was released, in DVD quality.  4.5 million people (at least) downloaded it.  If one cinema ticket is around $7, then considering how many might have seen it twice, it could have cost the movie $25,000,000 or more.  However while it did eventually go on to net $375,000,000 – from a budget of $150,000,000 – not exactly worth celebrating.  American Gangster, directed by Ridley Scott, also had some leakage in the form of a screener.  And while it did go on to net $266,000,000, although that movie was leaked closer to it’s release and receieved generally positive reviews.

How will The Expendables 3 handle this situation then?  Can it sustain this disaster like those movies (barely) did?  A financial bomb was already forecast by some sources such as Adobe, who claim to now be experts on this type of thing.  They had based their prediction on various factors such as social media trending, trailer hits etc.  That was before the PG-13 rating was revealed, which undoubtedly poured gas on that fire.  Now that the movie has to not only suffer a premature leak but one that is going down like a turd in a swimming pool, to quote a Dirty Harry movie,  it can only be called a disaster.

With all that said, I don’t think it’ll take the beating people think it will.  Will it do big money at the box office?  No.  Not now, not after this.  Will it tank catastrophically?  I don’t think so either.  I think at this point the movie might just tip north of its budget and gain a small return.  Stallone and Lerner will be happy at this point if it breaks $100,000,000.

But a ‘small return’ will put an end to this franchise.  They’re out of actors for another movie, all of the big names have been spent, not to mention that none of them are spring chickens anyway.  Logic would say that this movie will make another venture look like too big of a risk to those who might have financed a continuation.  The same goes for a spin off with the younger cast.  Nobody wanted to see these people even when the movie was still considered ‘R’, they were viewed as a compromise more than anything else.  So really, the future of this franchise it seems could end this August.

One last ride indeed…