"Wire" star will play the god Heimdall in Marvel pic.
FBI, Fox Make Headway on 'Wolverine' Leak
The source of a leaked copy of summer's ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ narrows down to a digital working print.
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Disney released a triptych of posters for this spring's "Alice in Wonderland" on Thursday. The posters give audiences a look at Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen, Anne Hathaway's White Queen, and Mia Wasikowska's Alice. Take a look at the avant-garde art for Tim Burton's upcoming 3D fantasy flick.
(This story was amended on Saturday, April 4, to reflect more information from Fox.)
Twentieth Century Fox has narrowed down the source of a leaked copy of its summer blockbuster, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" to a digital working print about a month old, a studio executive said on Thursday.
The FBI is investigating the online leak this week of a copy of the film, directed by Gavin Hood and starring Australian actor Hugh Jackman. But probably more important, the studio itself has several of its own investigators, along with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), hunkered down to identify a suspect and is chasing at least a half-dozen leads.
“It’s incredibly important because of how dangerous piracy is to the industry overall,” said Chris Petrikin, a studio spokesman. “No one is trying to underplay that.”
Though the Internet has been a hazard for Hollywood studios facing illegal downloaders after a movie’s release, it is extremely unusual for an entire film to leak online ahead of its distribution in theaters. In this case, the film leaked a full month before the $130 million, effects-driven adventure film is scheduled to hit theaters.
The breach must be alarming for Fox and for any Hollywood studio that sends its big-budget movies out to third-party vendors for special effects, motion-capture or other high-tech processes, placing the studio's core product at the mercy of Internet pirates -- and Internet critics.
That also makes the investigation particularly daunting, and the studio has been scrambling since earlier this week to trace the origins of the high-quality print.
The print leaked online was digital, rather than on film, making it harder to trace. One scene bore the stamp of a visual-effects company, Rising Sun Pictures, but they are not believed to have had a full copy of the film.
One Fox executive close to the investigation said the studio did not yet know exactly how many outside vendors had access to the film. “There’s the reproduction house sending it to the trailer company or the marketing department, there’s the director, his assistant. Unfortunately there are multiple ways it could get there (to the Internet),” said the executive.
In a statement on Thursday, Fox said the print was unfinished, missing special effects and some scenes, and had a temporary score, and that some scenes were entirely unedited. The movie is not expected to be completed until shortly before its release.
"The FBI and the MPAA are actively investigating this crime," the studio said.
In this case, the film appeared on several file-sharing websites. The effects house Rising Sun Pictures told Entertainment Weekly that they never had a complete print in their possession.
"We worked on individual sections of the film, and Rising Sun Pictures or its staff members have never been in possession of a complete version," said Rising Sun chairman Tony Clark in a statement. "It's common practice for work in progress between us and the production to carry vendor watermarks and for these to be integrated into various edits of the film for screenings, which would explain why our name appears."
In addition, "Wolverine" and Marvel fan sites -- who have been rabidly awaiting the film -- reacted angrily to the leak of the print online.
Comments
Raffi13 Says
it screams that the studios are NOT gurading their interllectual properties.games
iSo Says
I know my little chat brother has set up a photo booth at yonja birthday parties and gives away the photos dini sohbet as party favors.You can have people make a RFL banner to chat siteleri use as a backdrop.Have a digital camera, a few memory cards, and a photo printer on site. You can easily charge sohbet $5 a photo. That will be enough to cover your cost for the ink and still make a significant profit to give to ACS almanya sohbet
Sharon Waxman Says
uncle. i asked the studio, and have amended. the studio says it is 'trying' to remove pirated copies.
Anonymous Says
Just in reading this article, it screams that the studios are NOT gurading their interllectual properties. The fact that they cannot account for who had what section of what print is absurd. These are publically traded companies, and they cannot guard their assets, wtf.
Anonymous Says
I agree completely with Anonymous@April 03, 2009, 8:16AM PDT
This has to be the least informed article I've read, concerning this leak.
They should release the leaked workprint copy on the Blu-ray release with commentaries. That'd be pretty sweet :)
Internet and piracy n00bs need not be writing articles on the internet, lol.
NHBill Says
Right on ANONYMOUS. That last sentence is utter bull. Sharon, things such as that undermine your credibility and the credibility of this entire site. Do you really not know how Pirate Bay works?
db Says
The fansites may be taking a stand in refusing to review an unfinished copy that's floating around online, but it's pretty much a meaningless gesture.
The very fact that it IS online precludes the need for them to review it at all, because everyone with a fast internet connection and an inclination to watch the movie can review it themselves.
Anonymous Says
Sharon, that last sentence is absurd and illustrates how little you understand torrents or file sharing. First off, if the studio and the FBI don't know who stole the original file and uploaded it, how can they remove it? This isn't like a stolen print screening in some guy's garage that the Feds can go seize. It's on some random server somewhere linking to hundreds of other random servers all over the globe. But more importantly, even if they were to remove the original file, dozens of copies have now been uploaded by people who downloaded the original file. A check of just one torrent site as I write this shows thousands of people still downloading the film. If it were as easy as Fox would have you believe to remove the film, illegal piracy wouldn't exist at all.
The studio is saying that they've removed the movie from the file-sharing websites for the sake of Fox shareholders who read the mainstream, off-line press. It's the same reason they said the film had tracking ID in their earliest statement. But any 17 year-old knows none of that is true (again, if it were, they'd do it on every film and no one would be able to illegally download).
Please, please, please spend five minutes online and learn how this stuff works before writing about it. Not only does it make your article seem woefully uninformed at best, but it makes you look like a studio shill at worst, spreading an obvious lie for their benefit. I don't believe that to be your intent, but that's the end result.
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