Update On "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" Online Leak

[JamesG]

Wolverine Pirated
2 April 2009 2:34 AM, PDT

Despite strenuous and often costly security measures aimed at preventing unfinished movies from being pirated, a work print of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, starring Hugh Jackman, wound up online Tuesday, a month before its scheduled May 1 release.

According to published reports, the film lacked many special effects and included temporary sound effects and music. Eric Garland, head of BigChampagne, which monitors file-swapping services, told today's (Thursday) New York Times, "We've never seen a high-profile film -- a film of this budget, a tentpole movie with this box office potential -- leak in any form this early."

BigChampagne estimated that the film had been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times in its first 24 hours online.

Twentieth Century Fox issued a statement saying that the FBI and the MPAA were both attempting to determine how the film wound up online and vowed that "the source of the initial leak and any subsequent postings will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

The TorrentFreak website, which covers the BitTorrent scene, noted that a few minutes into the film the name of Rising Sun Pictures, an Australian visual effects company, and a March 2 date flash on the screen. "Of course Rsp would absolutely not endorse any leak and the leak could have happened before the print even reached them," the website observed.

Otherwise, no security "watermarks" were spotted on the print. At least one Fox executive did not appear overly concerned about the leak. "People who are going to download and watch it on their computer were either never going to pay to see it anyway or they're the type of super-fan who was going to go 10 times in the first week," he told the Entertainment Weekly website.

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

Australian Effects Company Denies Wolverine Leak
3 April 2009 5:15 AM, PDT

Officials at an Australian visual effects company have denied responsibility for the leak of the new X-men prequel, which found its way onto the Internet this week (beg30Mar09) - a month before it is due to hit cinemas.

Bosses at the 20th Century Fox film studio were furious when a full-length print of X-Men Origins: Wolverine began appearing illegally on websites on Tuesday night.

Studio executives took immediate action to remove the Hugh Jackman picture from the web, vowing to force prosecution on the culprit.

And attention subsequently turned to Aussie special effects firm Rising Sun Pictures, whose company logo appears in a caption a few minutes into the leaked copy.

But Rising Sun chairman and co-founder Tony Clark has now come forward to distance his company from the Internet mishap, insisting that although his employees did work on the picture, it is not possible for them to put the entire content online.

He says in a statement, "As we worked on individual sequences within the film, neither Rising Sun Pictures or its staff members have ever been in possession of a full-length version, so it would have been impossible for the movie to have been leaked from here."

Detectives at America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are currently looking into the case.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is due for release in May.

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

Wolverine Pirate Will Be Found, Says Producer
3 April 2009 2:34 AM, PDT

John Palermo, a producer of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, predicted today (Friday) that whoever uploaded an incomplete copy of the movie onto the Internet will be found and prosecuted.

"I can assure you we will hunt them and track them down and we are actually very close," Palermo told the Sydney (Australia) Daily Telegraph.

Lee is a partner with actor Hugh Jackman and Jackman's wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, in Seed Productions,which produced the film.

Meanwhile speculation that the Australian special-effects firm Rising Sun Productions may have been the source of the leak was quashed when the company said that it had never been in possession of a completed copy of the film.

But CNET News observed that numerous other outside firms -- from toy companies to advertisers -- need access to a work print before a movie is released. It quoted a source as saying that studios are "only as safe as the partner company's last hire."

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

X-Men Origins Most Pirated Film
7 April 2009 2:38 AM, PDT


A pirated workprint of X-Men Origins: Wolverine that became available online last week has already been accessed more than a million times by BitTorrent users, according to the website TorrentFreak.

It currently tops The Pirate Bay's list of the most popular downloads on torrent sites.

TorrentFreak indicates that efforts by the film's distributor, 20th Century Fox, to halt the proliferation of the pirated film have been futile -- that no sooner does a torrent site take down a link to a copy of the film in accordance with a notice from the studio than new ones appear.

TorrentFreak said that a poll it took of its readers indicated that, among those who downloaded the movie, some 40 percent said that it made them more excited to see it in theaters or on DVD and that only 6 percent said that they believe the pirated copy would be damaging.

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

U.S. Lawmakers Call Meeting Over X-Men Leak
7 April 2009 12:00 PM, PDT

Hollywood bosses are fighting to toughen antipiracy laws after a stolen version of Hugh Jackman's new movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine was leaked online.

Executives at 20th Century Fox studios were furious when a full-length print of X-Men Origins: Wolverine began appearing illegally on websites last Tuesday night.

The incident prompted California Representative Howard Berman to call a congressional hearing on Monday.

At the meeting Berman called on legislators and Hollywood heavyweights to discuss introducing bills aimed to make antipiracy laws more rigid between the U.S. and countries where protection of intellectual property is less strict.

He said, "The United States and its trading partners rely heavily on investments in intellectual property to drive our economies. Unfortunately, the incentives and profits for engaging in piracy are high, and the risks of being apprehended and sanctioned are low in many countries around the world. Piracy of copyrighted materials is not a victimless crime, and its global repercussions must be addressed."

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

Jackman 'Heartbroken' Over Wolverine Leak
8 April 2009 5:06 AM, PDT

Actor Hugh Jackman has branded the internet leak of his new movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine a "serious crime".

An incomplete print of the new action film was stolen last week and posted illegally on websites a month ahead of its cinema release.

The copy, downloaded an estimated 100,000 times, did not have special CGI effects added in and frequently showed actors hanging from wires in front of green screens.

And Jackman insists he was "heartbroken" the film has circulated before editing was complete.

He says, "It's a serious crime and there's no doubt it's very disappointing. I was heartbroken by it. Obviously people are seeing an unfinished film. It's like a Ferrari without a paint job."

Officials at America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are currently investigating the case in a bid to track down the culprits.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is due for release in May.

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

Fox Spokesman Shoulders Blame For False Wolverine Report
29 April 2009 2:35 AM, PDT


Fox spokesman Chris Petrikin is attempting to deflect criticism over the handling of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine bootleg controversy aimed at studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman.

Rothman had been the object of much derision after claiming that the workprint of Wolverine that had been uploaded onto the Internet last month was 10 minutes shorter than the final version.

Several bloggers on entertainment websites soon discovered that the pirated copy and the final print being sent to theaters this weekend are the exact same length and accused Rothman of lying.

But in an interview with today's (Wednesday) Los Angeles Times, Petrikin conceded that he had given the wrong information about the movie's length to Rothman. "There was no 'fibbing' involved -- that would imply that we were so on top of things that we anticipated having one of our biggest films of the year stolen and had time to concoct a plan to purposefully 'spin' wrong information," Petrikin told Times columnist Patrick Goldstein.

"In fact, I think I told Tom that there might be 10 minutes missing from the stolen version, based -- obviously -- on misinformation I was given or misinterpreted. The real issue is the scale of this crime and that the film was not finished when it was stolen."

Investigators have yet to learn who uploaded the Wolverine print or how it was obtained.

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

Fox Claims 4 Million Copies Of Wolverine Downloaded
7 May 2009 2:23 AM, PDT

Without citing a source for his information, News Corp. President and COO Peter Chernin claimed on Wednesday that the pirated workprint of X-Men Origins: Wolverine that hit the Internet in late March has now been downloaded some 4 million times.

Chernin's comments came during a conference call with analysts to discuss the company's quarterly results -- and flew in the face of other estimates that the pirated movie, produced by News Corp's 20th Century Fox studio, had been downloaded about 1 million times.

Piracy, Chernin said, has become "as big an act of industrial espionage, industrial sabotage, as we have seen in terms of its economic impact."

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

Nine-month Probe Bags Wolverine Pirate
18 December 2009

Demonstrating the determination of the FBI to hunt down video pirates who post incomplete workprints of movies online, the bureau announced Wednesday that after a nine-month investigation it had arrested a New York man who they said had posted an unfinished print of X-Men Origins: Wolverine on the website Megaupload.com last March, more than a month before its theatrical release.

However, the arrest of Gilberto Sanchez at his home in the Bronx does not close the investigation, the bureau said, indicating that while Sanchez may have posted the video online, it was not yet known who removed it from the studio (or one of its processing labs) to begin with.

The print was lacking several effects scenes and included temporary music tracks.

Fox claims that the video was downloaded 15 million times.
The film nevertheless earned $363 million worldwide.

-IMDB News