Hundreds of thousands of Wolverines:
The FBI are investigating the online leak of an almost finished copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a month before the film's cinema release.
The Hugh Jackman film was downloaded an estimated several 100,000 times from file sharing websites on Tuesday.
20th Century Fox confirmed the copy had now been removed and the FBI informed.
The studio behind Wolverine stated: "The source of the initial leak and any subsequent postings will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Not to get all Fezzik on Fox here, but I don't think the phrase "the copy has now been removed" means what they think it means. That sucker's on more computers than Conficker by now, and the only thing left to do is speculate about how badly this is going to hurt the movie's box office when it opens May 1.
Fox called the leaked movie a "stolen, incomplete and early version".
Viewers reported that green screens and wires attached to actors were still visible.
One user wrote on film website aintitcool.com: "The CGI is missing and the movie looks horrible without it.
"Even if you see the workprint you're still going to have to go see it in the theatre to fully experience the full movie with CGI effects fully intact."
Far be it from me to disagree with the erudite and well-spoken denizens of an AICN talkback, but the negative word-of-mouth I've been hearing about the movie has little to do with crude explosion animations or temporary music. After all, Iron Man made $319 million domestically after a finished, DVD-quality version was leaked online a week before release.
That's an important distinction. Just about any major Hollywood film (and plenty of smaller ones) are available to download a week or so before they actually hit theaters. The main differences between these and the Wolverine fiasco are that they're 1) usually 2nd or 3rd generation copies someone videotaped in a theater in Hangzhou, and 2) not reported by the freaking BBC and New York Times.
I haven't seen the workprint (no, really), aside from the opening credits and I can definitely understand why people would want to experience a full, finished movie in a theater, if only to see things going "kaboom" and to hear what awesome accompaniment composer Harry Gregson-Williams puts together for Hugh Jackman's numerous shirtless rage scenes. It's not like you could, I don't know, hook your PC up to your 50" Pioneer and watch it free of crying babies and cell phones.
I don't condone piracy (no, really), and I think I've mentioned before that as an aspiring writer I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of not reimbursing someone if you enjoy their words/music/movies. That said, the critic in me is laughing my ass off. What's that, Fox? You mean in spite of making me check my cell phone at the door, spying on me during screenings with night-vision scopes, and outright refusing to screen a growing number of movies in advance for the press, someone on your end leaked one of the most anticipated movies of the year on the internet? You mean the hugely lax security procedures in your own houses that allow interns and PAs to walk home with burned DVDs actually caused more harm than my review that came out Thursday instead of Friday? You mean instead of a handful of studio friendly hacks like Peter Travers and Ben Lyons you have to now deal with the sputtering outrage of thousands of fanboys who don't like what you've done with their beloved Deadpool? Boo fucking hoo.
Although several reviews of the incomplete film have appeared online, Fox was quick to praise the reaction of web users to the leak.
"We are encouraged by the support of fansites condemning piracy and this illegal posting and pointing out that such theft undermines the enormous efforts of the filmmakers and actors and, above all, hurts fans of the film" the studio said.
In 2007 director Eli Roth blamed an online leak of his horror film Hostel: Part II for reducing box office returns.
And this is a valid comparison because a shit sequel to a shit torture movie that 99% of downloaders had no intention of buying tickets for anyway and one of the biggest potential blockbusters of 2009 starring one of the biggest stars on the planet are totally the same.
In an interview with MTV [Roth] claimed: "You could buy Hostel: Part II for a quarter in Mexico City. As a result, in a lot of countries where the piracy was bad, they just didn't even release it."
Even in a country where civilians and tourists are routinely robbed and murdered, some things - like allowing the general public to see Hostel: Part II - simply aren't done. Who says Mexico is uncivilized?
Good post. Unfortunately, I fear I must be overly pedantic…. It was actually Inigo Montoya, not Fezzik, that uttered the “I do not think it means” phrase.
But like I said…Pedantic.
I’m a longtime X-Men fan, but I have about zero interest in seeing this film. It looks fucking awful. They mangled the backstories so much, it’d just piss me off.