Let me preface by saying I can understand where he’s coming from; moviemaking is indeed a business, and the business can’t succeed if it doesn’t make money. And a movie can’t make money if people are downloading it for free online.

But c’mon, that’s not why Hostel Part II tanked at the box office. According to this interview on MTV.com, Eli Roth blames piracy, and goes as far as saying that the type of people who would watch his movies are the ones that do the most pirating; “I don’t want those fans,” are his exact words. So basically he’s saying, “fuck those of you who like my movies.”

But if you read between the lines, what he’s really saying is, “the reason why Hostel II tanked is because everyone was downloading it instead of paying to watch it.”

Hmmm… could it just be that no one gave a crap? No, piracy is why Hostel II only made $18mil in the U.S. over 4 weeks (the first one opened to $19mil, by comparison). It had nothing to do with the bad marketing choices (what’s with the trailer in German?) or the fact that it just looked lame.

Posted on October 18th, 2007 by Enrique
Filed under: Bad Movies, Piracy