The Dark Knight hit theaters two weeks ago to monumental hype, an unmatched marketing budget, and rave reviews from critics and fans. But according to Warner Bros., the Dark Knight’s record $158 million opening weekend came all thanks to the movie company’s anti-piracy efforts.

The LA Times decided to regurgitate corporate spin profiling Warner Bros. “painstaking care to thwart pirates” preventing the movie from hitting file-sharing networks.  The six month anti-piracy bonanza kept camcorder versions of the film off the web for a whole 38 hours, by Friday night.

Warner Bros. is once again missing the point.  Dark Knight did this well because it’s an amazing movie people wanted to see.  That’s why IMAX theaters were sold out into August before the movie opened.  A theater experience, especially IMAX, is a different experience than a person can get at home, whether its a social outing or better quality facilities with surround sound and bigger screens. Word-of-mouth likely helped Dark Knight break the record for second weekend gross, a week after pirated copies surfaced.

The LA Times tries to support Warner Bros. theory, but ends up proving otherwise.  It cites Ang Lee’s 2003 Hulk got leaked two weeks before the movie opened leading to terrible reviews from fans.  The movie wasn’t that good, though it still made $62 million its opening weekend, even with pirated DVDs having a two week head start.

The LA Times also points out Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith had DVD-quality screeners leaked online days before the movie opened.  But good reviews and word of mouth led the movie to gross $380 million domestically.

What the LA Times left out was how much money and man power Warner Bros. wasted on its anti-piracy efforts and how much of that could have been shifted to marketing or merchandising or just saved.  Pirates will get copies of movies and they will share them.  Movies succeed when they are quality pictures offered in compelling ways so people want to see them.  Maybe Warner Bros. should lessen its six month anti-piracy efforts and think up ways to make the movie experience even more compelling.