In a major setback to the streaming giant Netflix, two of its big films scheduled to release later this year have leaked online. Antoine Fuqua's thriller "The Guilty" starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jane Campion's drama "The Power of the Dog" starring Benedict Cumberbatch, have become the latest victims of piracy.
Reportedly, the leak happened through the digital screener sent to the TIFF critics on-demand. This year, Toronto International Film Festival is following a hybrid model of screenings - in-theater, and on-demand digital copies, which is likely to be the source of this leak.
This is not the first time a leak has happened when the film was sent for digital screening. These kinds of leaks are very regular during the Oscars review process. A few years ago, The Expendables 4 was leaked before it hit theatres, and the film suffered on the box office as a result, although it was released within 20 days of the leak.
Both the leaked films are in full HD 1080p format and are the same as the original. The leaked source has a name stamp of "1080p WEBSCREENER by EVO," which now has been converted into multiple versions of 720p, 480p, 1080p using both X264 and X265 codecs. Both the movies are now available to download from every pirate site including torrents.
It will be hard and almost impossible for Netflix to remove these copies with the help of Copyright laws as the Piracy world has become too anonymous. However, there is still a possibility that the streamer will be able to identify down the source of the leak and prevent such situations from occurring in the future.
The Guilty is scheduled to release on October 1st, which is only 15 days away. As a result, it may have little effect on the viewing of The Guilty on Netflix in comparison to The Power of the Dog, which is set to be released on December 1st, still 77 days away.