Filmstalker: Canada boycotted by Warner Brothers

Warner Brothers has told the Canadian film audience what it thinks of them, and it's not very flattering. Pirates, the lot of them.

According to recent stories, and this latest announcement from Warner Brothers, it's the Canadian audiences that are most to blame for the recording and distributing of pirated films, so much so that they claim more than seventy percent of all pirated WB films in the last eighteen months came directly from Canada.

Now they've decided to take action, Warner Brothers, not the pirates, and Variety have the story that WB are cancelling all promotional and word of mouth screenings in Canada until the government takes action and makes it illegal to take recording equipment into the screenings.

However it's not all that bad, they are going to hold press screenings for officially cedited press representatives.

We've also heard that 20th Century Fox have been considering altering release dates so that Canada see releases later than everyone else, but as yet that studio hasn't taken any action. Perhaps now that WB have, they might follow suit.

Well Canadian film audiences, what do you think of this one? Is it going to affect you at all?

Add a comment

Your Name:

Your Email:

Your URL:

Remember my details?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)

Site Navigation

Promotion

Comments

You know, I'm so tempted to boycott their films just to cause a stir but I'm not sure I could do it.

Lame. Like we're the only ones that pirate movies. Talk about being pre-judged.

Posted by: Marina | May 8, 2007 11:59 PM

Marnia as a fellow canadian this totally pisses me off and frankly I am gonna call WB to ask what the deal is. Where did Spiderman 3 get leaked again? wasnt chinatown was CHINA. boneheads.

Posted by: Michael | May 9, 2007 2:04 AM

It's typical, they had to blame someone.
They wouldn't dare blame the states, Europe or any other place as they have more money then us.Or so they think.
It's all about money, and warner brothers and fox have shown by this action they don't care for Canadian business.
When I heard this I was mad. How dare they blame a whole country and only our country.
Warner brothers need to research more as typically it is not Canada.If they searched properly they would know this.
The more money you give the more these companies love you.
all about money. warner and fox sucks

Posted by: elaine | May 10, 2007 1:17 AM

Has anyone from Warner Brothers ever visited New York City?? They sell pirated movies ALL OVER town! from broadway, to Canal Street in China Town, to Fifth Avenue to the World Trade Center site....These movies did NOT come from Canada. That phenomenon of seeing pirated movies everywhere downtown is unheard of Montreal, Toronto and other major Canadian cities..

I also saw this same trend all over latin America, namely Rio and Mexico City....and all over Asia..

Trust me, NONE of these pirated movies came from Canada.

Warner Brothers should clean up their backyard first and apply their new policy in the USA as well, not just Canada, as we represent 20% of their North American market share.

Otherwise, we need to boycott Warner Brothers films until they agree that piracy is a global problem, (including in the USA) not just a Canadian one!!!

Posted by: Mario Jacques | May 10, 2007 2:40 AM

shame on them for singling out one particular country.

And one of the easiest solutions for piracy is to make the movie more accessible(cheaper). Of course people will pirate movies when they hear that such and such movie raked in $200 million dollars(canadian of course :) in the first weekend?

Fast, hight quality movie downloads soon after the cinema release wouldn't go astray either.

Posted by: pablo | May 10, 2007 6:42 AM