Producers of “The Man From Earth” Self-Pirate The Sequel in the Name of Marketing

The independent producers that made “The Man From Earth” knew that its sci-fi sequel would get pirated one way or another, so they decided to pirate it themselves.

The decision to do this was driven by the original 2007 cult classic being pirated before the movie was officially released. The producers realized this made the movie climb considerably in IMBD ratings. They asked for donations afterwards and gained $20 thousand, approximately 20% of the movie’s budget.

The release date for the sequel, “The Man From Earth: Holocene,” was April 3rd. Two month before, on January 15th, the producers uploaded the film to Pirate Bay in 1080p HD format. From there, the film was dispersed to other websites. The video on privacy networks includes a request from Richard Schenkman, director and producer, to donate money if viewers enjoyed the movie.

Since self-pirating, they have collected about $45 thousand from patrons around the world, fans from places like Europe, China, and Brazil. By March 28th, “Holocene” was downloaded 388,915 times using peer-to-peer file sharing. If including streaming piracy sites, the total would be over 1 million downloads/views.

Producer Eric D. Wilkinson does not call himself a proprietor of privacy, but realizes it is inevitable. They decided to pirate the movie to make it profitable. However, they do anticipate that most of the profit from the sequel will be from legitimate channels.

The film is available on Vimeo, Movie Saints, iTunes, Amazon Video, and DVD exclusively from Walmart and Amazon.

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