A handful of new blockbuster movies have appeared on the Internet following a hack at Sony Pictures in recent days that could be linked to North Korea.
A remake of “Annie,” starring Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz and Quvenzhané Wallis was among the movies pirated to the Internet over the Thanksgiving weekend, as was the Brad Pitt World War II film “Fury.”
{mosads}“Mr. Turner,” “Still Alice” and “To Write Love on her Arms” were among the other movies being downloaded in droves on online networks in recent days.
According to Variety, Fury had been downloaded more than 1.2 million times as of Sunday morning. “Annie” had been downloaded by 206,000 different people.
The leak follows hacks of the motion picture company’s computers last week, which caused its computers around the world to go offline.
In last week’s cyberattack, hackers going by the name Guardians of Peace took over staffers’ computers with an image of a slowing red skeleton and green spiders. Company and employee documents including copies of their passports, bank records and email messages were reportedly also stolen in the hack.
Re/code reported on Friday that the studio is investigating the possibility that the hack stemmed from North Korea, as retribution for an upcoming film mocking the isolated Asian nation.
“The Interview,” starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, is a comedy about a TV news host and his producer, who are asked by the CIA to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after they secure an interview.
The North Korean government had previously called the film “undisguised sponsoring of terrorism” and “an act of war” in a letter to the United Nations this summer.