For those interested in catching the latest Expendables movie before it hits theaters, there was a 24-hour window where you could view the upcoming Sylester Stallone-led action team-up.

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A DVD-quality copy of The Expendables 3 has been downloaded via piracy sites more than 189,000 times over a 24-hour period, three weeks ahead of the U.S. premiere.

According to Variety, the leak of the film on the Internet ahead of its theatrical debut, an unusually rare occurrence, could dampen box office for Expendables 3. It's also worth noting that the target demo for the movie is young males, who are the biggest users of illegal file-sharing services.

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Variety reported that pirated copies of Expendables 3 began cropping up on torrent-sharing sites Wednesday and downloads started to spike Thursday, according to data provided by piracy-analytics firm Excipio. As of 6 p.m. Eastern Thursday, the movie had been downloaded 189,052 times worldwide, with 42,216 of those in the U.S., according to Excipio.

As of Sunday, July 27, at 6 p.m. Eastern, Excipio had tracked 1.13 million illegal downloads of Expendables 3 worldwide.

A similar occurrence happened in 2009 with the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine when a rough-cut hit the web and was downloaded by at least 15 million people. The FBI in December 2009 arrested Bronx resident Gilberto Sanchez for illegally uploading Wolverine, and he was sentenced to a year in prison.

Lionsgate, which is distributing the movie, declined to comment to Variety. The original source of the pirated copy is unclear; user comments posted on piracy websites indicate the rip is genuine.

Expendables 3 hits theaters on August 15.

Tags: The Expendables 3 Movies