It’s been the big news story of the past week — X-Men Origins: Wolverine somehow found its way into a pair of questionable hands and ultimately was leaked onto the Internet in explosive fashion. In what seemed almost like an unavoidable virus, the movie had spread around to thousands of computers in what seemed like moments. It is believed that actual numbers included 70,000 downloads (surely many more by now) and who knows how many viewings.
One big thing that we’ve learned in all of this, is that when movies finish production, they get shipped out in all different directions — sometimes they go to special effect/animation studios, they go to get their music put in, they’re sent to have trailers cut, they’re sent to people to set up the DVD — and this is where many various people get their hands on the movies. Fortunately, most people aren’t stupid and careless enough to actually put the movie on the Internet where millions of people can get to it.
If you’re not familiar with this leak, it was a copy of a workprint version of the film. This means that it’s unfinished and many special effects and other things are incomplete. Sometimes these versions are shown in early screenings to gauge viewer reactions, but that’s about the only time you’d ever see one. This particular workprint is also missing all of the reshoots that went into the movie a short time ago, which was in an attempt to change some things they did not like and make the movie better. Because of this, hopefully most who went and watched the leaked version thinking they were scoring an early peek will realize that they didn’t see the real movie that’s coming out on May 1, 2009.
One of the people who decided to give the movie a look-see was Fox News freelance web person Roger Friedman. Better yet, after he decided to watch the pirated film, he took it a step further and reviewed the movie for his site! Wow. One of your all-time “woopsie” moments, right there.
Here’s an excerpt from his review:
This lovely example of not thinking before you act was swiftly responded to by Fox, who rightfully fired the guy. Here’s the statement from Fox News Corp:
It’s been quite the interesting week in movies, and as many others have said, this is likely the start to some severe changes in how studios go about things and their efforts to stop employees, contractors, and everyone else from getting their hands on copies of their films.
Keep in mind, The Dark Knight had its own similar situation and they ended up doing pretty damn good in hindsight. Not to say that this makes it all OK, but hopefully everyone will realize that the ACTUAL final product hasn’t been seen yet, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine finds some success after this whole mess.
[Sources: CHUD; Deadline Hollywood; AICN]
I watched the leak version, couldnt help myself!
To be honest no matter what changes they make this movie will be mediocre at best. Still worth a watch though.
Reply
Yea, a friend who also grew up with the comics came over and we watched it tonight. It was garbage. I hope they re-shot about half of the movie because it was really bad. I’m glad this leaked, it saved me 10 bucks. If it was even half-way decent I would have been in line to see it on opening day to see the special effects / finished edit.
Reply
yeah, if they didn’t completely redo “Deadpool” and that entire awful ending scene, then who cares.
and all the fake posing done by wolverine during the fight scenes…
and i heard the reshot material was only 15 minutes?
Reply
i saw the movie online. personally i don’t see the big deal with all this stupid piracy sht. i’m sure all of us at one point have seen a “preview movie” waited in line for an hour and then not paid to give the studios a review of their stupid movie. if the studios were a little smarter they’d figure out a system similar online; the only reason movies are so damn expensive is the whole experience. i’d pay a smaller amount to view it online without the big screen and system ect… the drive through went into the history books, the theaters might not be so obsolete, but its just around the corner. if they were even smarter they’d watermark a persons ip to streamers to catch pirates. i just want to watch it at home sometimes on my schedule; what is the crime in that.
the wolverine movie is not a wolverine story. i don’t know what they were thinking. the greatest reason wolvy was so popular was his mystery. they gave up his whole origin in the first frame? personally i hate the wolvy origin story; marvel was crazy even doing one so haphazardly; and to introduce it to the mainstream like he was a batman/ superman character is ridiculous. fk origin stories; expositional nonsense before the real exposition to the story. wastes 30 mins of my movie. miller or smiths story would have been bomb. even a first appearance style with him hunting hulk, then finding weapon x etc… would have been fun and lead to a nice sequel etc… they completely got rid of his memory loss problems; or should i say it lasted 5 mins. what were they scared it would infringe on the bourne identity series? the weapon 11/ deadpool thing is completely stupid and destroys the whole deadpool character and weapon x mystique. and come on… swords coming out of the guys arms? how the f could you bend your elbows with a 2 feet katana up your forearms. the ending was a cheesy bullshit crappy ending. how they could f up a woly movie i’ll never know. jezzus they did a great iron man movie, which was a shocker. the best part was Liev Schreiber as saber; he was great! this movie suffered the same faliure as x-3.
form the cut i saw its a 6 out of 10; i never expected anything more than a 7 or 8, and dark knight and iron was only a 8 for me anyway. so enjoy fellow fans. at least its not electra, punisher 1&2, dardevil, f-four 1&2, hulk 1, and spidey 3, which i paid to see and which were at a 2 for me. gagg throw up in my mouth. it was a little better than hulk 2.
its easy to see this was not going to be dark knight or iron man or lord of the rings calabre. all you have to look at is the director(galvin hood? really?) – the only movie is an indy tsotsi that was good(what were all the other directors busy?). and the writers(david benioff, and len wein? really for a wolvy movie?) – troy? gagg, the kite runner?(good indy movie, but not wolvy.) avengers tv, yuck, beast wars? street fighter animated series, gargoyles? seriously bullshizzle. no where close to wolvy caliber. wolvy is the strongest marvel character and they threw him to the starving wolves,(pun intended). sht m.nght shamadumalingdong could have done a better wolvy movie.
but i’m still going to shovel out 12 to see it in the theaters. :) and see it again tonight. it’s wolvy guys. plus support the making of these types of movies. i’m glad marvel took over there franchise, but pleaeaeaeaeaese tell me they’ll take their heads out of their collective asses and give us more iron man type movies with strong writers, cinematographers, and directors.
and for the love of all that is holy never give avi arad another movie to produce!!!!!
Reply
p.s. with all the other sht i said above i still liked the movie… then again i’m a sucker for this genre.
Reply