Directed by J.J Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg, Super 8 was released on June 10, and barely a month later, Torrent Freak has reported that a DVD screener of the film has popped up on the Internet.
This is certainly not newsworthy, but when the copy is watermarked pointing to where the leak came from, it’s bound to cause a bit of embarrassment. It would seem that the source of the leak is none other than Howard Stern, a man who is no stranger to controversy.
Copies of the film have quickly make their way around torrent and peer to peer sites, bearing the typical Paramount Pictures watermark, along with a watermark you don’t often get to see. In the top right hand corner, H. Stern is clearly visible, which you can see for yourselves in Torrent Freak’s image below:
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According to the site Deadline New York, The Howard Stern Show did in fact receive a DVD screener before his interview with director J.J Abrams, but there is no evidence from Paramount’s own investigation pointing to just how the copy ended up pirated on the net, and “they have no indication that anyone from Stern’s show was involved.”
Stern himself won’t be likely to let this one go since it’s his own reputation that’s on the line – at least as far as film studios are concerned. He’ll probably be more than eager to get to the bottom of how this happened.
Despite the fact that it’s a DVD screener, the leaked copy is not getting a clean bill of health from hardcore pirates, with some going so far as to say it’s a little bit grainy in the darker scenes, but that’s not likely to stop thousands of people, 26,800 at the very moment to be exact, from downloading the film. Some of whom have left Howard Stern thank you comments along the way.
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