Comment Re:Sweet sweet copyright justice (Score 1) 242
It made $49mil theatrically worldwide on a $15mil budget. Profits were probably hurt by the distribution issues, releasing an independent during summer blockbuster season, negative response from vets, and (later) the lawsuit against the film. File sharing did not really impact the theatrical release. It only made $145k on its opening weekend which is before file sharing would even be able to kick in. Catching Fire opened to $161mil this past weekend and file sharing hasn't gone away, so obviously that wasn't the problem.
They sold over $30mil in DVDs in the US in the first 8 months (a DVD that was very light on features by the way.) I'm sure that the DVD sales were negatively impacted by the filesharing lawsuits (I bought it on DVD and promptly got rid of it without even watching the movie as soon as the news broke.) Even people I know who aren't in touch with such topics were aware that people were getting sued for "watching" the Hurt Locker. The lawsuits killed any and all potential that the movie had to resurrect itself on DVD and destroyed the momentum that it had gained during the awards season.