2010's Most Pirated Films: Avatar Refuses to Lose

Did you think Avatar was going to settle for being the highest grossing movie of all time and then just fade away quietly? No way! This record-breaking juggernaut is also the most pirated film of 2010. On one hand, this makes no sense at all since Avatar seemed like the last film you would want to download, given that its visual, 3-D experience was the main selling point. On the other hand, I guess the hype behind any movie making that much money is hard to ignore, even for internet pirates. In any case, while 20th Century Fox is probably okay with this distinction since the film already killed it at the box office, a few other films on the top ten list probably aren't so happy.

I'm especially looking at Kick-Ass and Green Zone, both of which were more or less considered failures. If, for example, half of the people who downloaded Kick-Ass had gone to see it in the theater at, let's say, eight dollars per ticket, that would have added an extra $45.6 million to its gross. Granted, those numbers of who would and wouldn't have paid to see it are totally hypothetical, but I'm sure the producers are trying to guess about the same figures right now. Ah yes, and we already knew that the Hurt Locker producers were mad about piracy.

1. Avatar / 16,580,000

2. Kick-Ass / 11,400,000

3. Inception / 9,720,000

4. Shutter Island / 9,490,000

5. Iron Man 2 / 8,810,000

6. Clash of the Titans / 8,040,000

7. Green Zone / 7,730,000

8. Sherlock Holmes / 7,160,000

9. The Hurt Locker / 6,850,000

10. Salt / 6,700,000

[Via Reuters]