The Paris premiere for "Spider-Man
3" was a hot-ticket blowout. Stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst
were on hand for the late April screening, as were throngs of
paparazzi. Once the movie began, the real fireworks started when
Sony Pictures security guards spotted a premiere guest secretly
recording the movie.
Even though the guest said that only one scene was taped, Sony
wasn't taking any chances. With actions that included urging some
Canadian theaters to patrol their "Spider-Man" auditoriums with
night-vision goggles and splitting up film cans sent to theaters in
piracy havens such as China, Russia, Poland and Hungary, Sony
launched an especially aggressive campaign to keep its expensive
sequel off the black market ahead of the film's worldwide release
this week.
Sony's multimillion-dollar security plan seems to have worked.
Although the studio admits that bootleg copies of "Spider-Man 3"
could be available for sale and download as early as this weekend,
the studio appears to have blocked the release of any illegal
copies before the film landed in theaters. "Spider-Man 3" DVDs that
turned up on Chinese streets in late April proved to be pirated
copies of "Spider-Man 2" in boxes decorated with "Spider-Man 3"
artwork.
In part because unlawful versions were unavailable, "Spider-Man 3"
has broken a number of overseas box-office marks, topping
single-day records held by the first two Peter Parker films. "No
question about it, no question about it," that the anti-piracy
campaign augmented overseas ticket receipts, said Jeff Blake,
Sony's head of worldwide marketing and distribution.
Sony said the sequel set new sales marks Tuesday in Japan, Korea,
Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. When
the film opened in some European markets Wednesday, it generated
huge returns in France and Italy.
"It's really important that there not be pirated copies before a
movie opens," said John Malcolm, director of the Motion Picture
Assn. of America's worldwide anti-piracy operations. "Because if
there is, there's something else out there competing for the
public's attention."
Sony's anti-piracy efforts on "Spider-Man 3" had four main prongs.
First, the studio confiscated camera phones and patrolled theaters
showing early screenings of the film (in addition to Paris, guards
escorted someone out of the Madrid premiere for illicitly taping
the film). Second, the studio encouraged some theaters in Canada
where as much as 40% of the world's camcorded bootlegs originate
to add guards to showings. Third, it patrolled file transfer
websites where pirated movies usually land. And finally, Sony
refused to send single shipments of entire "Spider-Man 3" film
prints to theaters in a number of countries, instead breaking up
the deliveries across several shipments.
"That way, no one has an entire print until opening day," Blake
said.
The idea behind split-reel delivery is to make sure that pirates
have no access to a complete film at any step in shipping
including freight trucks and customs offices. Entire prints can be
copied on a film scanner, or Telecine, yielding a nearly pristine
copy.
The countries targeted for split shipments included parts of
Brazil, France, Romania and Britain. The list of trusted countries
was much shorter, with Finland, Switzerland and Belgium among
them.
"You run the risk of really missing out," Blake said. "There's
nothing worse in the distribution world than a miss-out where the
print doesn't show up and you have to turn people away. But you
have to balance that with going out at the last possible minute."
Ever since camcording inside a movie theater became a U.S. federal
crime in 2005, pirates fled north to Canada to record movies in
theaters, the MPAA says, because Canadian piracy laws are much
weaker. Montreal has emerged as a main source for camcorded movies
in North America.
Cineplex Entertainment is Canada's largest exhibitor and plans to
run "Spider-Man 3" on as many as 500 of its 1,290 screens. At its
Scotiabank Theatre in downtown Montreal, the sequel will play on
six or seven of the multiplex's 12 screens.
But moviegoers who showed up for midnight "Spider-Man 3" screenings
Thursday were in for a wait: The theater, among numerous other
Cineplex locations, planned to inspect the handbags and backpacks
of every guest. Theater staff and private security guards were also
set to patrol auditoriums, looking for camcorders.
"We are trying to make sure we don't leave any stone unturned,"
said Ellis Jacob, Cineplex's president, who will help guide the
searches. "But it's a hard one. People don't like it. They are
coming to the movies to escape reality."
