Even though it should be surprising to approximately no one when any major project is leaked, heads were set to roll a few weeks ago when a selection of high-profile films showed up online in advance of their release dates. Some of those screeners—which notably included a high-def version of The Hateful Eight, truly pissing Quentin Tarantino off in the process—were traced back to a substantial Hollywood producer named Andrew Kosove, who says he never received the DVDs in the first place.
Perhaps to save Kosove’s neck (or at least to appear to be doing so), the piracy group known as Hive CM-8 recently released a statement about the leaks and the hubbub surrounding it. In the statement—available to read in its full, error-ridden glory at The Hollywood Reporter—they claim that they got the movies “from a guy on the street,” rather than through a hack, and that they “wanted to share these movies with the people who are not rich enough or not able to watch all nominated movies in the cinema.”
Here’s where things get interesting. Next, the note offers an apology to the filmmakers and particularly to Tarantino, whose film they appeared to have immensely enjoyed (unless they’re taking the piss, which wouldn’t be too surprising because, you know, hackers):
We feel sorry for the trouble we caused by releasing that great movie before cinedate even has begun. We never intended to hurt anyone by doing that, we didn’t know it would get that popular that quickly. The Hateful Eight is an excellent, thrilling, and entertaining Western that combines terrific direction, a fantastic cast, a wonderful script, beautiful photography, and a memorable score. All of those elements make The Hateful Eight an unforgettable film that is Quentin Tarantino at his best.
They even later go on to call The Hateful Eight “the top candidate for the awards” and predict that it “will win by a mile over others,” before signing off on this week’s edition of Hackers & Roeper by saying, “thx Tarantino for this wonderful movie.” Could have used a star or thumbs up rating to work with, guys, but OK.
Of course, that wasn’t all revealed in the note, as Hive CM-8 also made sure to note their belief that all the attention garnered by the scandal actually has helped the film:
Since everyone is now talking about this movie, we don’t think the producers will lose any money at cinedate, and we tell you now why. We actually think this has created a new type of media hype that is more present in the news, radio, and in the papers than Star Wars, and the promotional costs for this were free.
If lets say 5% of the people planned to watch this movie at cinema date, due to this media push we unintentionally created, we believe that now 40% of the people will watch this movie in the cinema ’cause everyone is talking about it and everyone wants to see the movie that created so much noise. This will push the cinema tickets sale for sure.
Science!
Quentin, you can begin your apology now.
(via The A.V. Club)
