‘Fate of the Furious’ Pirated 2.1 Million Times in First Week After Theatrical Debut

Universal’s “The Fate of the Furious” is burning rubber on piracy networks, after the car-racing actioner crashed through box-office records since its theatrical premiere two weeks ago.

The pirated copies currently in circulation on file-sharing networks are all illegal camcords shot in cinemas, apparently originating from India, according to piracy-analytics firm Tecxipio.

“Fate of the Furious,” which bowed April 14 in the U.S., was illegally shared 2.1 million times worldwide in the following seven days, Tecxipio data shows. That makes it the most-pirated film for that week — however, the movie was well off the pace of its immediate predecessor, “Furious 7,” which was pirated by 4.74 million users over a comparable seven-day span in April 2015. Another data point: Universal’s “Jurassic World” had 3.1 million illegal shares in the first seven days after hitting pirate nets.

Piracy activity for “Fate of the Furious” spiked to 489,400 daily file sharers on April 16, two days after U.S. theatrical release, according to Tecxipio, and held steady with an average of 420,000 on the days that followed. “Furious 7,” by comparison, hit more than 939,000 file sharers on the second day following its theatrical debut and climbed to an average of over 1.05 million per day during the full week after its release.

Still, the piracy numbers for the eighth installment in the “Fast and Furious” series are relatively robust — especially considering the copies were camcords, rather than higher-quality digital rips.

The data shows that big-budget Hollywood fare, particularly movies and TV shows that skew toward male audiences, remain very popular among the get-something-for-nothing crowd. And it points to the fact that the industry has no foreseeable way to stop the piracy, despite years of trying to combat the problem.

In its opening weekend, “Fate of the Furious” set an industry record with a worldwide box-office take of $532.5 million. Through April 26, the movie had grossed $965.6 million globally, per Box Office Mojo. The movie stars Vin Diesel, Charlize Theron and Dwayne Johnson, along with Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, and Kurt Russell.

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