Wolverine’s Origin Becomes a Pirate Story

Posted by Dr. Cole Abaius (cole.abaius@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 1, 2009

wolverine-trailer-header1

If it hadn’t clocked in before midnight for April 1st, this story could have easily ended up in the slush pile that quickly fills up with every film site’s attempt at lying to their readers under the guise of playing a wacky prank. Guess what everyone: Christopher Walker is not going to be Green Lantern. He should be, but he won’t.

However, this bad boy came through the tubes under the wire. Apparently, and confirmedly, a DVD-quality, non-watermarked, sans time code version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine hit the internet with the force of a box of free TRON shirts in a Comic-Con crowd.

I don’t care to add to the ease of acquiring a totally illegal copy of the flick, so we won’t post links, but the event brings up a host of questions:

How big an audience out there will care to download the film a month early instead of experiencing on the big screen?
Can a leak this big have an impact on how post-production is done or how it’s monitored?
Why aren’t people illegally downloading Prince’s new three-disc set instead?

I’m not sure anyone has the answers to these questions – any guesses would be almost pure speculation. We’ll have to wait a bit to see some numbers from torrent trackers, but there’s a potentially large group of onliners who wouldn’t have an ethical problem or a platform problem (seeing it on their Macbook screen instead of the big screen) with downloading the thing.

A ton of other sites have announced the news, but Aint It Cool went far enough to post a plea to its readers asking that they refrain from sending in “advanced” reviews of the film or commenting in talkbacks, spoiling it for others. Devin over at CHUD has a solid article examining a few ways that a leak like this might have gone down – focusing primarily on the post-production side.

Here’s where I go on a rant about how pirating this film is bad, especially in this particular economic climate, but I’ll spare you in lieu of saying that: all film lovers know that this shit isn’t cool.

What do you think? Would you download it? Why or why not? And isn’t it ridiculous that we have to either drive to Target, illegally download, or spend eighty bucks on Prince’s new joint? I know! Seriously.

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Davebaxter1989

'all film lovers know that this shit isn’t cool.'

Do they though? I will await with much interest the fallout of this as I tend to disagree. I mean on a personal note I wasn't that jazzed to see it regardless hence my disinterest in even an early release. But the majority I feel will flock to this but going by what I know about public view of piracy I don't think it will have THAT big an effect on opening weekend numbers. Note I say not THAT big as I feel it will have an effect.

Sam_isusingan_

The actual effect of piracy on the movie/music industry is undetermined, despite what the MPAA/RIAA will have you believe. Both agencies will have you believe that every download = a loss in sale. In a lot of cases, the people pirating the movie never would have gone and seen it in theater/rented etc. and as such it's impossible to accurately gauge the monetary effect of piracy. Especially considering the study done here in Canada, that said pirates were actually MORE likely (by like 2%) to buy CDs over non-pirates.

As for the pirated version, I'm not going to say I'm not curious to watch it. This is totally the kind of movie where for me, if I did, uh, pirate it, and it turned out to be good, then I would go see it in the theater. Its an action movie, made to be huge and explody on the big screen. If it's shit, I'd rather watch it at home, turn it off when I'm sick of it, and never feel like I wasted the money seeing it / supporting hollywood's idea that movies like that are good. Regardless of your ethical issues with piracy, the continued success of "shit" movies (*cough* paul blartt *cough* the spirit *cough*) will continue the production of them, even if the critic world slams those movies.

Just look at the Meet The Spartans line of films if you don't see credible evidence for that.

For myself, I have pirate. A lot of what I pirate, I then go and see in theatre or go and buy the dvd. On top of that, a lot of movies I have pirated I had never heard of before (case in point, Ryan Reynolds' The Nines, which I waited patiently to buy the day it came out on dvd). Its a mixed bag, with pros and cons, and to simply say that any real movie lover knows it isn't cool is arrogant, Cole. But I don't really want to get off into a whole piracy rant which I seem to have done.

I may watch this. If it makes me want to kill a small orphanage due to character changes, I won't see it in the theatre. If it's good, I will see it in theatre. That being said, if it's a working print and is missing a ton of effects, then no, I won't let it change my opinion. And of course, this is all assuming that I find the time to download it in the next weeks and actually watch it. So don't demonize me just yet.

Alright_Meow

I definitely wouldn't say that all "film lovers know this shit isn't cool." I love absolutely love film, but I don't have the opportunity to attend all of the festivals and screenings that you film-blog guys do, and a lot of the movies that generate buzz through the film-blog crowd don't get a wide release and sometimes take a year or more to finally make it to DVD. For some "film lovers," piracy is their one and only option to watch a film while it's still relevant in this circle. A lot of you film-blog guys come off as elitist (really, you do) and your loyal readers like to stay on the same page film-wise as you. To be honest, I think that piracy is a wonderful way to generate even more buzz for music and movies alike. I'll use The Hurt Locker as an example. The Hurt Locker has been playing festivals since October of 2008, it won't be wide-released in the US until the middle of July - NINE months after your typical readers first caught wind of the positive buzz surrounding the film. Quickly searching The Pirate Bay I see that a DVD rip of the film was available to the pirating masses way back in January. As a "film lover" I'd want to check it out ASAP, and as a "film lover" you can bet that I did. I loved it. I can't say enough good things about the movie. I'm going to see it during its opening weekend and you can bet that I will try and influence everyone that I know to check it out in the theater as well. There are already shitty camera recordings of the Dragonball movie on torrenting sites, and as awful as it looks you're god damn right I'll be there in the theater to bask in the abysmal glow of its complete and utter failure - as a "film lover" of course.

Dan Backslide

Not interested in downloading. I heard that this version of the movie didn't have all the special effects in, so I imagined Wolverine with blue screen claws, Dudepeel with an actual mouth, and a lot less explosions. Plus, have you ever seen a movie that didn't have all of its sound effects and music down yet? It's weird, to say in the least. I mean, you wouldn't read a book before the author had the final draft written, so why watch an unfinished movie?

_Christopher_M

well 70% of the effects are missing and there could be a lot of added scenes...I don't think this leak will hurt the box office...I have to admit I watched it I might actually check it out in the theater...I wasn't going to before watching the workprint...I like what Fox attempted so far with the leaked material...although Deadpool was almost laughable...most of the fight scenes were very well done...the overall movie has a good starting point for more Wolverine movies...it really felt like the first X-Men movie...I could see a sequel with Logan in Japan and hopefully will have less mutants....when it comes to Deadpool I'm not so sure about a spin-off...on the other hand Gambit was done well, I really wouldn't mind seeing the character get his own flick...

I don't think movie piracy is the negative thing the studios make it out to be...Taken was leaked online 6 months before it's U.S. release and still managed to very well...even Slumdog got leaked prior to it's wide release and still is doing great...piracy only hurts a studio if they put out bad films...I really doubt this will effect the blockbusters like Wolverine...since this isn't a finished film I think the people over doing the effects are going to be seeing a lawsuit from 20th Century Fox...

k(Black)

Not Cool! Not just for this movie but any other.

GyPirate09

Fully agreed! No need for me to emphasis on the rights and other way how wrong to download illegally.

Ryan

I won't be downloading it but you know people can burn DVDs or for that matter, my computer can media link music, photos, and VIDEOS over to the PS3 for viewing on the HDTV. Some people will be watching Wolverine on their big screen by tonight. Now I download music and older films that have made their money but I haven't seen (Lethal Weapon, Pulp Fiction) but this REALLY pisses me off. I hope they nail the joker who did this. Prison time!

RobertFure

Chud isn't loading for me, so I didn't see what Devin wrote, but as someone who has actually worked in post production several times, I can tell you there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to stop a leak from happening. A film as big as Wolverine is probably going to have at least 1 editor and 2 assistant editors (these guys won't leak it), a Post Supervisor, a Post Coordinator, 2 Post PAs, possibly a runner. That's just for the edit. Your special effects crew will have 4 artists or more, 3 PAs, another Supervisor, another Coordinator - and it's probably in an off site location, with several janitors, secretaries and visitors. Add in to that there are probably 2 more people delivering cuts of the movie while its being edited to the director, producers, studio executives. I worked on a show that every time a big edit came out, something like 16 copies went out and that was just for an episode of TV.

Any person along that line can make a DVD dupe in under 10 minutes. Hell, half of them their job entitles DVD duping. You could make up some studio regulation that only certain people can dupe, but they won't obey it as it is a time handicap. The watermark is a simple layer on the timeline and can be clicked off by anyone on the street, even if they've never seen an edit machine before. It would take them 3 minutes to figure it out. Plus, sometimes plans are scrapped. Copies don't get sent out. If one is left on a desk or thrown away before being shredded, you're in trouble. Considering they say the effects weren't finished yet, the only place a non-watermarked leak would come from is the edit or effects areas. Anything actually made for delivery probably would have a watermark on it. I haven't watched the download, nor will I (a big SFX movie with unfinished SFX? No thanks), but if someone has - was there a slate? The slate would identify the run time, title, and edit. That could pin your leak down a little tighter.

Short of posting a guard outside every edit facility working on the project and doing full searches and barcoding each DVD and confirming delivery, you can't stop it. The cost of hiring people and taking more time to do things would be very cost prohibitive.

Sam_isusingan_

I guess its not common knowledge outside of the post-production team and the "(pirate) scene" that most of pre-release, pre-dvd rips are done by someone working on the movie. If someone in that scene just saw me call it the pirate scene they would be very upset. There's a whole bunch of politics involved, but you're absolutely correct. And there's nothing new about this part of it either, it dates back to the easy duplication of VHS tapes (and I'm sure betamax as well). The only difference is that now instead of someone in the "scene" giving the video to a friend, it ends up on the internet, and while it's a way bigger field of audience, the people that are likely to find a good workprint / prerelease / screener online are a slim percentage of the movie going audience.

As for barcoding the dvd, it would be pointless. the protection would last all of a week before someone cracked it for someone they know blah blah blah, and it would be null and void. It happened with the prerelease cds of a bunch of different bands over the years. Like you said, spending the money on protecting things like that would drive up overall costs, and potentially be detrimental to sales in the long run. The video game industry learned that the hard way.

edit: chud also won't load for me, i'm guessing the heavy traffic from digg's front page is causing that

Wolverine’s Origin Becomes a Pirate Story

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