As reported on The Verge.
By Ben Kersey
TorrentFreak has once again compiled a list of the most pirated movies of the year. It shouldn’t come as any surprise to see blockbusters such as The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises make the list, but some may not recognize the front runner. Project X beat out Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol as the most pirated film of 2012, reaching an estimated download count of 8.72 million despite the poor critical receptionand lackluster box office performance. There are also some notable exceptions: The Hunger Games is nowhere to be seen despite being the third highest grossing movie of 2012, and the other major superhero movie of the year, The Amazing Spider-Man, also failed to make the grade.
As usual, TorrentFreak is only providing an estimate of the number of downloads using available information from public BitTorrent trackers. Still, it’s a reasonable snapshot of the collective tastes of movie pirates the world over.
| RANK | MOVIE | DOWNLOADS | GROSS REVENUE |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Project X | 8,720,000 | $100,931,865 |
| 2 | Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol | 8,500,000 | $694,713,380 |
| 3 | The Dark Knight Rises | 8,230,000 | $1,081,041,287 |
| 4 | The Avengers | 8,110,000 | $1,511,757,910 |
| 5 | Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows | 7,850,000 | $543,848,418 |
| 6 | 21 Jump Street | 7,590,000 | $201,585,328 |
| 7 | The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) | 7,420,000 | $232,617,430 |
| 8 | The Dictator | 7,330,000 | $177,547,352 |
| 9 | Ice Age: Continental Drift | 6,960,000 | $875,115,339 |
| 10 | The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 | 6,740,000 | $712,171,856 |