A quick update on this unfortunate situation before the weekend.

We told you last week that buyers were understandably fuming about Amazon‘s unintentional leak before its theatrical run of the Jason Statham action movie Mutiny.

Since then, the mutiny has seemingly been quelled, but buyers are still deeply frustrated and many are hoping that Amazon does what’s described to us as “the good-faith thing” by offering some kind of compensation for the leak.

The $50 million movie has now opened in most territories. Buyers we’ve spoken to in multiple markets are disappointed with returns; multiple have told us that the film hasn’t performed where they thought it would. Last weekend’s U.S. take didn’t get to $8M. The UK only mustered $500,000. There were other soft openings. Its current box office gross currently stands at around $16M global.

There are a number of potential reasons for this, including the incredible staying power of Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey. Maybe Statham stans just didn’t fancy this one. It’s possible. One potential reason is also piracy.

We’ve been sent multiple examples of the movie being pirated online. According to anti-piracy site Torrentfreak, the movie is the most pirated of the week.

“The genie is out of the bottle,” one person close to the movie told us. “It’s very rare to get a 4K fully mixed version of a film online. It’s usually a bad recorded camera version. The box office is certainly a bad surprise. This film had similar metrics to other successful Statham movies but it’s running at half or less of the box office.”

“None of this is scientific,” a buyer admitted to us. “But there’s no way the leak cost people zero. It’s hard to know if it cost hundreds of dollars or millions in each territory but it’s clearly being streamed globally. Lionsgate has been trying to take the movie down from a number of sites. The hope is there’s something offered by Amazon to buyers to make this pill easier to swallow.”

How much could be offered and to who? It’s hard to say. Amazon declined comment for this piece. As did the producers and Lionsgate.

“There has been a lot of finger-pointing,” one overseas buyer said of the mood this week. “What Amazon did was totally unacceptable. But no one is taking a lead on it internationally. And these things are so hard to quantify. There could also be other factors at play.”

Statham is understood to be among those disappointed by the leak and its potential effect. Lionsgate is understood to be in talks with Amazon about next steps and is continuing to assess the impact.

The picture is expected to be become a little clearer once Premium VOD numbers emerge in coming weeks. In the meantime, there’s seemingly little appetite for litigation. According to lawyers who have been consulted by interested parties, the contractual chain of title on the project apparently means that international buyers would have to sue the producers, who in turn would have to sue Amazon. No one is keen to do anything like that from what we can glean. Ultimately, these are all parties who work together frequently and who generally have good relationships and need each other. It was a bad mistake, but one made in genuine error.

“It was a f*ck-up and it sucks. To say it had no impact on the box office is pie in the sky,” one buyer claimed to us. “Ultimately, we just hope Amazon does the right thing by its partners.”

Pierce Thiot, a creative executive at Ryan Reynolds‘ production and marketing company Maximum Effort and two-time Emmy nominee who also worked on the launch of Apple TV+, has died. He was 40.

The company said he died August 24 of a pulmonary embolism at his home in Orem, Utah.

Thiot served as Head of Creative for Brand and Entertainment at Maximum Effort, which was founded in 2018 by Reynolds and George Dewey. He worked on such projects as the Lay’s ad with endless time loop on Groundhog Day and Reynolds “fight Big Wireless” ad for Mint Mobile. Thiot also wrote new original content featuring the sitcom alien ALF, worked on resurrecting The Walking Dead for AMC, and the “Lead from Behind” piece for President Camacho’s (Terry Crews) campaign for president in 2020. Watch that here:

Thiot also worked on ads for DoorDash’s 2026 Super Bowl campaign with 50 Cent, along with spots for The Devil Wears Prada 2, L’Oréal Paris, Lancôme and TJ Maxx. Maximum Effort called him a creative genius whose ideas helped shape the company and define its distinctive approach to storytelling.

“Pierce Thiot was a shining light of creativity, kindness and hard work,” Reynolds and Dewey said in a statement (read it in full below). “It is impossible to imagine the world, let alone our company, without him. … We adored and admired Pierce. He was generous with his time and love. He was funny as hell. He gave the best hugs.”

Business Insider named Thiot to its 2016 list of “The 30 Most Creative People in Advertising Under 30.” Before joining Maximum Effort in 2022, Thiot played a key role in launching Apple TV+ (now Apple TV), leading integrated global campaigns for its hit series The Morning Show and Servant.

During that time he was creative director at TBWA/Media Arts Lab, where he earned an Emmy nomination for Apple’s 2019 ad “Make Something Wonderful,” part of the company’s “Behind the Mac” campaign. The ads also won a Cannes Gold Lion for film that year.

While at TBWA/Media Arts Lab, he also worked on Ariana Grande’s Apple Music video for “Memoji” (watch that below) and created Emmy-nominated work for Gatorade and Airbnb’s #LiveInTheMovies campaign, along with the Shot on iPhone world-building series for SEE.

Thiot also served from 2016-18 as creative director at Anomaly, where he helped launch the Netflix series Black Mirror. He also worked on global campaigns for Beats by Dre.

Thiot also made script contributions to National Geographic’s quirky nature docuseries Underdogs, which Reynolds narrated, along with the upcoming Animal Oddballs.

Thiot worked with his creative partner Kathleen Swanson for more than a decade.

He is survived by his wife, Stacy, and their children Adelaide and Jackson.

Here is the full statement on Thiot from Reynolds and Dewey:

“Pierce Thiot was a shining light of creativity, kindness and hard founders Reynolds and Dewey said in a s statement (read it in full below). It is impossible to imagine the world, let alone our company, without him. Pierce was incredibly accomplished before he came to Maximum Effort, having worked on Apple, Nike, Gatorade, Coca-Cola and created the viral sensation ‘Will It Beard?’”’ In his almost 5 years at Maximum Effort, he created countless creative moments for brands like Doordash, L’Oreal, Mint, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and most recently Coyote vs. Acme. He was also a co-writer of National Geographic’s Emmy-winning Underdogs series. More than that, he was beloved. We adored and admired Pierce. He was generous with his time and love. He was funny as hell. He gave the best hugs. Our hearts and efforts will forever be with his wife Stacy, his children Adelaide and Jackson and his work partner of over a decade Kathleen Swanson.

– Ryan Reynolds and George Dewey