A DVD-quality copy of Sylvester Stallone's action-packed The Expendables 3 has leaked online, three weeks before its scheduled release.

The whole movie appeared on various piracy websites last week and quickly became a big hit among torrent users, with more than 100,000 copies of the film downloaded within the first 12 hours.

By early Monday, it had been ranked the most pirated movie of the week on TorrentFreak.com, with more than 65,000 users downloading the new The Expendables sequel from a single torrent.

Studio bosses at Lionsgate, the company behind the film, have declined to comment on the leak, which appeared to have been ripped from a screening DVD.

The Expendables 3, starring a slew of top action men - including Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Mel Gibson, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Harrison Ford, Antonio Banderas, Dolph Lundgren and Arnold Schwarzenegger, is not due to open in New Zealand cinemas until August 14.
 

The Expendables 3 is the first high-profile film to be leaked since 2009, when an unfinished copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverinesurfaced online almost a month before its theatrical release.

Watch the trailer for The Expendables 3 below: