I wish this was an April Fool’s joke. The reality is far more serious. Never before has a large scale summer blockbuster film been leaked to the web an entire month before release, and this isn’t a horrible quality camera-in-a-theater video either. A DVD quality Workprint version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine exploded onto the internet late last night and has already been downloaded several thousand times.
The studio is sprinting from site to site in a no-holds barred attempt to take the file down, but at this point they are already far too late. If you really want to see it, you can now very easily get your hands on a near final version of Gavin Hood’s latest film. Several effect shots are unfinished, wires still appear in many of the sequences, and as a Behind-the-Scenes excercise, this cut of the film may very well interest film students and movie buffs alike… just after they see the actual film.
100 million dollar summer tentpole pictures are what allows the industry to survive into the next year. They are what keep studios profitable, and provide thousands of jobs for artists and craftsmen within the United States and abroad. Rampant layoffs and downsizing in our current economic climate has already been widespread, and a loss of revenue will only accelerate the downward spiral.
When you see a completed film, you are bearing witness to a collaborative effort of hundreds of people, all working to deliver a finished movie worthy of the time and effort spent creating it. This was not the way this film was intended to be seen. It is also not compensating any of the people involved. Were each and every person who downloaded the film to simultaneously pre-order a movie ticket for opening day, perhaps an impending crisis could be diverted. The studio’s marketing campaign has whipped fans into a frenzy, fans who would go see Wolverine at a midnight screening. These same fans are the people who would do anything to hear news about the film, and would be the most susceptible to the temptation of illegal downloading.
We here at The Cinema Source do not condone illegal activity. You will not find any links to the Workprint on our site. Our condolences are with 20th Century Fox and the cast and crew of the film who will undoubtedly recieve a diminished return on their investment due to this act of piracy. We’d like to urge everyone to avoid downloading the Workprint version, and let your first viewing experience be that of the movie that you were intended to see. After you see it, I think the comparison will make for interesting discussion, especially with a rumored 12 minutes more footage in the actual theatrical cut. To be honest, I’m amazed this hasn’t happened before now. The official release date of X-Men Origins: Wolverine is May 1st, 2009.
29 Comments
While i hear your pain, i feel that everyone who downloaded the movie is a fan of the genre and will for certainly buy a ticket but also merchandise, the DVD, the DVD box set etc.
The new way to solve this problem is to engage the “pirates” as brand evangelists or a focus group or early reviewers.
Finally, studios need to step up their internal security so this content isn’t leaving the building if it is not be be shared.
Ill admit i was intrigued when i heard a friend of mine had it. I watched it at his house and I am actually ecstatic to watch the finished version and will be there first day. I really really liked it. The whole feeling of it. Cant wait to hear the actual score of the film and finished effects and final cut and runtime. They used transformers music throughout the entire movie and it was great. Looking forward to May 1st 2009 anxiously!
yeah i definitely watched it last night. wasnt even looking for wolverine, just wanted to watch a movie and found it accidentally. i didnt hurt the company though.. i work at a movie theater so i wouldn have had to pay to see it anyway
This is just sad
This is the kind of crap that raises ticket prices.
I must say that the studios fail themselves and their audiences by letting films get leaked.
I also loved it and when i saw it I thought it was the best film of the year. I am positive i will see it on May 1st 2009. The acting, cinematography, and plot that I saw blew my mind. It’s definitely a buyer on my list. I encourage everyone to see the full feature like me when it comes out… Plus Hugh jackman made me orgasm while watching it. TWICE
I saw it and it was OK, but I won’t buy a ticket to see it again in a theater. The leak will harm the boxoffice without any doubt; “Fox” are in deep shit.
THIS MOVIE WAS A PEACE OF CRAP. I CANT BELIVE MARVEL LET FOX EVEN MAKE THIS MOVIE. I AM A DIE HARD FAN OF WOLVERINE AND IF ANY OF U HAVE EVER PICKED UP A COMIC OF WOLVERINE ORIGINS U WOULD SAY THE SAME THING. THE PEOPLE AT FOX SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST COME CLOSE TO THE BOOKS. FUCK ALL OF U AT FOX FOR DISTROYING THE CHARACTER. UNLESS FOX PULL SOMETHING OUT OF THEIR ASSES LIKE GETTING THE STORY LINE RIGHT I WONT GO SEE THIS SHIT OF A MOVIE.
I watched it, IT SUCKED!!!
Hugh Jackman has NO respect for the source material.
I’m very disappointed with Marvel for letting them mutilate the story. These characters took years to develop, and an hour and a half to butcher.
The film is such a departure from the comics it should have been called;
“Hugh Jackman’s: The Adventures of Claw-Man!”
I will never pay to see another movie involving Hugh Jackman. He is an absolute Hack!
#8 and #9 — Loyalty to the comics aside, did you ever consider that you might enjoy it more when it was finished and on the big screen the way it was meant to be seen?
The reaction to the leak is actually pretty heartening: pretty much every article I read, even on all the fanboy sites, condemned the leak and encouraged people not to watch it. All bootlegs do is hurt the industry and ruin movies for people too idiotic to realize they’d like it better if it was on the big screen.
#10;
We’re not talking about a crappy cam version. We’re talking DVD quality with missing music scores and maybe 8-12 minutes of “raw” footage. So…
Uh…no! It was the butchering of the story and the characters that I disliked.
They have deviated as far as possible with all of the characters. They have changed the entire history to fit the deviations. There is nothing left of the original works except for the character names, and even then they didn’t get it right.
Far too many liberties were taken in my opinion.
I would have walked out of the theatre 20 minutes into the film, and Hollywood would take my 15 bucks and make more crap with it.
Everyone may have caught a break here — if this had happened to “Catwoman,” “Catwoman” would have had cover for its dismal box office performance. And fans would have been charged the only defensible fee for seeing that turd — nothing — with some genuinely fascinating glimpses into the process of FX-heavy filmmaking to compensate them for their time.
What comes across from the film is an institutional contempt for its audience. There is as little action as they imagine they can get away with, yet for all the constant cheap yammering there is also very little story. And what there is — someone is killing all the Watch, er, X-men — is so tired “The Incredibles” lampooned it five years ago.
“Wolverine” is “Edward Scissorhands” made by Rob Cohen. It is filled with loner-hero clichés and campy macho posturing that would be laughable even when not snarled by a steroid queen too-desperate to pass as straight, who will only feel entirely right for this character when it is reimagined for the inevitable X-Men Broadway musical.
Save your money and don’t feel guilty. As someone working in the industry, Hollywood’s whining over losses to piracy always make me smile. Ever since they built the place, studios have brazenly and unapologetically made an art of screwing talent out of the money rightfully owed them. They don’t like how it feels to be on the other side of that equation? Nobody cares.
And consider this: The way to ensure better movies is to make this sort of leak routine. Bad movies will be smoked out before opening weekend. There will at last be sufficient incentive for Hollywood to make sure its product is good.
The abover poster wrote:
“sort of leak routine. Bad movies will be smoked out before opening weekend. There will at last be sufficient incentive for Hollywood to make sure its product is good.”
Ya know.. I have to kindav agree with that. I’m sick and tired of seeing crap movies come out. I’m not 100% sure that leaking every movie is the solution, but seriously, is there really a need or want to see yet another Anaconda movie?
Let’s see some serious hard-core horror, sci-fi, and fantasy based movies! Not crappy 3rd rate crap.
Not saying that this Wolverine movie is 3rd rate crap, certainly not saying that (besides, i’ve not seen it), but I do agree that Hollywood does have a tendency to turn out some gawd-awful movies more often than they turn out good watchable ones.
Stay Scary!
-Brian Hardin II
i saw it too!!
i must say there were huge flaws with characters that i very much disliked, but all in all im going to the midnight release anyway(if there is one).
it was really good, but nothing beats the theatrical experience, sitting with hundreds of fans in a single theater, digital suround sound, freakin huge @$$ screens, and over priced popcorn! its fun and i enjoy it.
i support the movie industies cuz i dont want them making crap, which they do anyway and yet i still go…
:/
Oh man, thank goodness I downloaded this leak. Saved me some money. I definitely would have watched this in the theaters. Now I don’t have to, cool. I’m going to tell and copy this movie to soooo many people.
lol, j/k haven’t seen it. This is probably what people are doing though. Ah, well.
I wish I could unwatch this movie..it was awful!
Since when does Gambit fly?
The Blob wasn’t very big, I’ve seen fatter people on the bus.
Deadpool was a Frankenstien monster-type hybrid created by Striker. No mouth!
Cyclops? Really? Why? Why? and where did he get those ruby-quartz glasses?
Emma Frost and Silver Fox are sisters?????
The war scenes in the trailer are actually a montage during opening credits.
Wolverine goes to Strikers lab and saves a bunch of mutant kids…just like X2. YAY
Wolverine cries twice….and looks like a homo the whole time. Seriously, Jackman’s stage acting really shines through as he prances around in tight jeans, posing and flexing for every scene.
And wolverine can hold back a sustained optic blast with his claws.
BUNK
I watched it.
Anyone who spends money on this film is supporting a crappy movie, and supporting future crappy movies.
I blame everyone who sees this in the theatre for the next comic book rape. If you truly love the original material you’ll kick yourself for supporting this film!
i watched the workprint last nite. i understand there was unfinished shit, you could tell. the cables still bein visible… honestly, i think watching this movie is a great tribute to the b-movie movement of the 70’s and 80’s when everything looked like blatant shit. it’s like, this is what the movie would have looked like if it was made 20 years ago. so on may 1, it’ll be like you put this movie in a time capsule. i’m not upset that i watched it, i have some problems with some of the characters, but i personally love hugh jackman as wolverine. i thought leiv shreiber did an excellent job as well. they had some good chemistry. gambit flies, so fucking what? these movies are not only made to tailor to over-obsessive fan boys who still live in their parents basement and have nothing better to do than nit-pick. they are made for the general public. my fiance for one, has never really picked up a comic in her life. so living with her, i get to experience these movies from her perspective as well, and it allows me to appreciate hollywood moving these beloved stories to a new medium. was this movie like watching xmen 1 or 2? no. but it was not the attrocity that was 3. i will be standing in line to pay for my overpriced ticket on or around may 1. everyone else should just quit their whining. if seeing the unfinished workprint interests you, then watch it, but keep in the back of your mind that it will look and sound much better in the theater, and the subsequent dvd release as well. fox lost no money in me. if anything, i’m glad i watched it this way first, cause i would have been pissed if i relived my xmen 3 midnite experience again. thank god they did better this time…
I want a complete revamp of the entire X-Men franchise! I feel bad for all the people who have only seen the movies, never read the comics. There is so much stuff you’ve been denied. You have seriously been ripped off!
If you can’t read, do yourself a favor and watch Hulk vs. Wolverine, the animated movie. It will give you a better understanding of how the Wolverine should be.
If this film does well at the box office they will continue to make movies of this caliber. If it does poorly at the theatre…well, let’s hope someone gets fired for this.
I loved seeing the wires and the raw footage stuff, I thought it was the coolest part of the workprint. The story however…
I wish they would just stick to the original works, they are so much better.
And stop killing off characters. 2 more films like this and Wolverine will be the last man on earth, posturing to himself.
this movie was a huge turd. how can someone be called “the merc with a mouth” when he has no f###ing mouth. the story was just soooo bad its like they wanted to find every third and fourth rate mutant from the comics and screw them up.
oh yeah did i mention they introduced baraka from mortal kombat as deadpool with optic blasts and teleportation?… sad times
ok so i have seen this copy and i’m only commenting to vent about a few things…..
1 people saying that true fans won’t download this is crap…true fans are wanting to see it sooner then later finished or not people are not patient.
2 I was so excited to see a new Marvel movie i’m starting to lose faith in movies period between all the remakes and now just ruining good characters this movie SUCKED even unfinished it can’t be saved unless they redo the whole thing
Spoilers
ok so Sabertooth was actually pretty cool Liev was awesome
Wolverine was well Typical Hugh Jackman whatever who cares
Biggest Upsets were Gambit…..we have all wanted Gambit for so long and now they screw it up No Cajun Accent would have been played better by the guy who ended up being the killer in season 1 of True Blood he did a great fake Cajun accent
Bolt you get a great actor of lord of the rings and lost and give him like 2 lines and then kill him…..why not get a nobody and save some money or get better writers
Deadpool WTF totally nothing good about the way they did this everyone is excited and is gonna be let down when he was introduced at the beginning it seemed promising but then make him some stupid laser shooting no mouth decapitated guy come on
Patrick Stewart was kinda cool to see at the end of the movie but seemed rushed
Would have been cool to see Magnito meet up with Victor Creed
And the Wolverine memory loss crap was totally rushed writing….oh i’m mad at him i’ll shoot him in the head to get rid of his memories so all the stories fit……come on people lets put some thought into it at least get rid of the line his brain may regenerate but his memories won’t or add a cheesy Dr. Evil laugh at least since it’s a stupid line
lastly NO STAN LEE????????
ok i’m done for now just really unhappy
now what do i have to look forward to??
Terminator hoping for best expecting the worst
A nightmare on elm street again enough with the remakes
Harry Potter please be good
transformers 1 sucked so not expecting much from 2
GI Joe will suck
here’s hoping Ghostbusters 3 gets made and is good and for god’s sake do Gremlins 3
i hate people like you stacy that just bashes everything, transformers was really good, they cant make it just liek the fucking carttons becuase, well if you have ever watched them, is pretty gay. so they had to do something new but still kept the goffiness of the robots in the movie as the same in the cartoons, and the 2nd one will be even better. And as all this wolverine crap, i think everyne who watched or downloaded should be put in jail and fucking beat up. there are hundreds and hundreds of of people who put there heart and soul into these just working there asses off to do the best they can do. And it takes a real low life of people to do this illegaly and watch the movie, and then just bash it over and over before it is even finished. you all are pitiful jealous douchbags that wish they were in these movies that you hate so much…go fuck yourselves.
Um…i remember Ang Lee’s “Hulk” getting a workprint release a month and a half pre. I remember “Signs” getting a workprint release almost 2 months pre. Numerous other films, as recent as Liam Neeson’s “Taken” have been leaked months in advance, and there was no sympathy for those studios? lol I mean come on, this isnt that big of a deal, this movie will still make hundreds of millions of dollars simply because i already know for fact that Hugh Jackman will have his shirt off in more than one sequence: BAM! Theres 30 mil + from the female audience of women 18-35 right there, not to mention HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of xmen fanboys ready to get their wolverine on. I say that this wont hurt the opening at all, if anything, it will drive sales, i for one know that i would much rather see the finished product than a crappy workprint with missing fx and green screen lol I guess what im trying to say is that everything has happened before, everything will happen again, people download movies, for some reason they are still allowed to do so for the most part, i know PLENTY of people i can get these movies off of, and yet, even if i didnt know anyone that could get them, someone out there knows someone who knows someone who DOES know where to get em. Its just the way its always been, even back in the day when homies sold bootlegs on vhs on new york street corners (which im told has been upgraded to dvd status on the street), they distributed them by hand! In todays day and age, people should just get over the whole downloading thing, i for one know that i dont buy every movie ive ever watched, but i do know that i buy alot of movies, as do i know a bunch of people that buy movies, i dont pay to go see every movie in the theater, and alot of people just download it instead of going to the theater, but people STILL pay top dollar to go to the theater, and they always will. FAST AND FURIOUS MADE 72.3 million or something this weekend and i mean seriously…you think thats gonna beat a blockbuster like wolverine on opening day, with a fanbase as large as the xmen fanbase? No way, no sir. So stop complaining studio, people want to see this movie way too bad to settle on a crappy workprint. GUARANTEE this movie still does at least 200 mil at the box office, and when it gets to blockbuster it will make 100 million more so all these studio people need to just chill out, count their money, and go on about their day because NO profit will be lost by this leak, and for anyone to say so would be a mockery of our intelligence.
ok this is directed towards suckthishaters
get a life dude. seriously first off the reason i hated Transformers was how boring and nor original it is. look at the scene where Shia is running away from his car thinking it’s bad then the cop car shows up and yes it’s the bad guy does no one remember Terminator 2 i was waiting for bumble bee to say come with me if you want to live.
And second you hate people who download a movie right cause people work their asses off to make it so in other words everyone should have to pay to see it. I hope you have never used a free pass to a movie then cause you didn’t pay oh and if a friend rents a movie do you watch it with them? cause they paid but you didn’t tisk tisk
there are 2 types of people in the world the type who like the fast and the furious movies and everyone else…..your a fast furious asshole aren’t you. I like good movies sorry this ranks right up there with all the fast and the furious, resident eveil and ultraviolet it sucks.
You know I love watching movies on the big screen. You know, the one in my own home. It was great to enjoy this movie with out my ass going numb, or worrying about missing important plot lines because I have to use the bathroom, or worry about your three little bastards that you can’t control behind me never shutting the hell up or kicking the back of my seat. It was great not having to deal with little pricks on there cell phones texting away, or those rude idiots that just wont shut the hell up. Or that funny guy that thinks he is cool and is impressing his friends by making stupid lame ass jokes during the movie. Screw theaters. You want my support come out with same day releases in theater and dvd for a much higher price. I’m sick of movie theaters. I will buy this movie when it comes out on DVD just like the rest of the summer block busters coming this year.
what questions me to this very day.. why the fuck are the FBI wasting there time with shit like this :|
I just saw it at a friend’s place and as a film student, it worked well as an interesting “behind the scenes” experience. There was a LOT more Green Screen effects and CGI going into this than I would have imagined! I wish more movies (especially SFX laden movies) leak like this because a). They’ll make the money back anyway and b). It’s cool to see all the wires and unfinished 3-D stuff! BTW, the movie *sucked*, but it was clear that a lot of stuff was missing from it, so I think the finished version will have a better structured story, but the crappy dialogue they can do nothing with. I won’t be shelling out cash to watch this in the cinemas but I’ll def. buy the DVD for comparison with the work-print..!
Look, the only workprint that was ever worth a damn was the Blade Runner workprint, as it has such an important place in cinema history.
Yes, it’s a problem that the film leaked Fox should throw this workprint onto the dvd as a special feature for completists. But the fact is, if the movie tanks, the studio can now blame the leak and Gavin Hood and a lot of executives will be off the hook for it’s Box Office.
This is a film that already had a massive history of problems going on between the studio and Jackman with the director, so much so that Richard Donner was flown in, not to smooth things over as reported but to cover several days shooting, a massive amount of the film was being shot by Peter Macdonald, the second unit Director, with no involvment from Gavin Hood whatsoever, whose inexperience of action and severe lack of knowledge of the genre threatened to derail the whole enterprise. The set was cleared on more than one occasion as heated arguments broke out between Hood and Jackman. By comparison Macdonald, whose also picked up Rambo III when Russell Mulcahy was fired, became the favorite of the cast and crew and is the unsung hero of the piece, as without him there would be no film at all.