Disney Behind Oscar Screeners Leak?
Over the weekend several Oscar screeners of high-profile films leaked online. Of particular note are Quentin Tarantino’s Hateful 8, Alejandro G. Inarrito’s The Revenant, and Ryan Coogler’s Creed. These three major holiday releases have something in common: they’re all going up against Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the box office. Interestingly enough the JJ Abrams’ sequel was conspicuously not among the leaked films, which begs the question: Did the Mouse House engineer the whole thing? Keep reading to see why this may not be as crazy as it sounds.
Disney is betting the farm on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, having picked up the rights to the mega franchise for just over 4 billion dollars. So they’re doing everything they can to ensure a healthy return on investment ASAP. Case in point, The Mouse House recently threatened to pull The Force Awakens from Arclight Cinemas if they didn’t play the film at their iconic Cinerama Dome through Christmas instead of replacing it with Hateful 8. Despite Tarantino having had a pre-existing agreement with Arclight, Disney’s strong arm tactics worked.
On Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show, the Oscar-winning director claimed Disney is “going out of their way to f— me.” Disney chief Bob Iger, also a huge Stern fan, didn’t take too kindly to the shots fired by Tarantino. Sources tell us the CEO placed a call to pals at the NYPD — who also had a bone to pick with Tarantino stemming from his anti-police comments at a rally in October. Thus began a covert operation to further ruin the box office take for Hateful 8 and any other film that was in Disney’s way.
The NYPD’s Cyber unit — normally tasked with fighting online piracy and dark web evils — was asked to oversee “Project Sledgehammer” which entailed leaking up to 40 Oscar screeners before Christmas. Disney was not taking any chances. They targeted their direct competition with the likes of Hateful 8, Creed, and The Revenant, but they also leaked smaller films as well, including Brooklyn, Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Road Chip, Youth, and Room.
Tarantino is well aware of Disney’s clandestine operation. In fact, the super web savvy director is using the Internet to fight back with his own “Project Sunsucker.” Sources tell us Tarantino is re-uploading leaked screeners with spoilerific scenes from Force Awakens.
He’s even managed to recruit fellow directors Inarritu and Coogler to help the cause. The Revenant helmer is reportedly behind one of the most downloaded cam rips of Force Awakens — you’ll know it’s his work because the opening crawl is in Spanish and the entire camrip is shot in one take a la Birdman.
As for Coogler, he’s pulling no punches! The director of Creed has manhandled several projectionists in the LA area to disrupt viewing of JJ Abrams’ new Star Wars sequel. The latest incident has gone viral.
Hopefully both sides can reach a peaceful resolution before giving away each other’s entire back catalogues. For updates on this story and all other made up news from a made up galaxy far, far away, keep it locked to FakingStarWars.net or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
