“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” the long-awaited fifth instalment in Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, has been stolen from the Walt Disney servers by some devious hackers and they are now demanding a massive yet undisclosed amount of money from the Mouse House to be paid to them via Bitcoin.
Disney is refusing to pay the ransom
It would appear that Disney doesn’t really have a choice in the matter, since “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” cost them an unverified figure upwards of $300 million to produce, and the hackers, if not paid, could just release it to the world for free, meaning there would be no need for them to go out to the cinema and buy a ticket, and therefore no return of the gargantuan investment for Disney, so the hackers may think they have Disney’s hands tied – and yet they’re refusing to pay the ransom.
Since the hack, Disney has been working closely with the FBI (who have been undergoing a little shakeup of their own recently with the firing of their Director James Comey by President Donald Trump out of spite) to catch the culprits, who they refuse to pay a dime to. According to some sources, hackers have not been getting paid by their victims recently because Bitcoin is simply so darn difficult to use. But a big corporation like Disney surely has the manpower and the capability to figure it out – they’re refusing because of the principle. And besides, “Pirates of the Caribbean 5” will do immensely well at the box office regardless of whether or not it’s available online for free – it will be anyway, like all films these days, because of all the other un-Jack Sparrow-like pirates lurking around the web, and audiences will still flock to the cinema.
If there was ever a guarantee of a profitable Film, it would have “Pirates of the Caribbean” in the title. Watch it soar past the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office, despite stiff competition from recent blockbusters like “The Fate of the Furious” (which has pretty much died down now, actually), “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
2,” and “Alien: Covenant.”
Similar hackers caught Netflix out recently
This “Pirates of the Caribbean” hack echoes a similar hack of recent whereby Netflix had the next season of “Orange is the New Black” stolen, called a bluff that wasn’t really a bluff and refused to pay, and they got screwed. The new season is now available online.
But let’s face it, Netflix aren’t losing any money because of that. The new season is useless to non-subscribers without the earlier seasons that are exclusive to the streaming service, and anyone who’s already a fan surely doesn’t mind paying out a few quid a month for the honest service – it’s basically available online for free anyway, if you just wait for the official release date.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” will be released by Disney on 26 May (possibly earlier by someone else), and it will be the fifth entry in a franchise that’s grossed $3.72 billion so far.
