Rising Sun Pictures leaked Xmen Origins: Wolverine?
A workprint copy of the upcoming Xmen Origins: Wolverine movie has appeared on the internet a month before the US release date.
At the centre of discussion about the source of the leak is the prominent watermark of Australian special effects company ‘Rising Sun Pictures’ that is visible in the workprint release.
As of time of publication there are nearly 10,000 seeds and over 50,000 leechers downloading the film via BitTorrent over at the Pirate Bay (do a search for wolverine and then sort by date added).
A screen capture showing the Rising Sun Pictures watermark
Having provided pre-visualisation services for the film in pre-production, RSP are now in development on key effects sequences in the film, which is due for release in 2009.
The workprint leak contains the watermark of the Australian company and is dated 2nd March, 2009 so with the information on their website and the start of March being 2 months out it is plausible that Rising Sun would be finalising their work on the film.
One would think that pre-release transportation of movies, especially ones of of ‘blockbuster’ calibre, would be pretty secure given the money poured into anti-piracy these days but apparently this isn’t so, Devin Faraci from chud.com writes;
Burned DVDs are swapped around with aplomb in this world; in fact I was told that the Wolverine DVD was switching hands for the last couple of weeks. It’s hard to nail down where in the post-production process the Wolverine leak originated; it could have been someone working in digital FX, someone working on the titles, or even someone working on the trailer. Hell, it could be somebody working on the DVD release, for that matter.
My source told me stories of people blithely taking home DVDs of major upcoming studio blockbusters – some with watermarks, some without – so that they wouldn’t have to work overtime at the office. And it’s not just the honchos who have this access. My source told me about interns bringing DVDs home to watch with their friends.
I guess the fact that they are usually watermarked in some way is usually deterrent enough that these dvds don’t usually make it onto the internet. I don’t imagine it does your film industry reputation any good having internet bootlegs pop up prominently featuring your company’s watermark.
Given that the leaked workprint features Rising Sun Pictures watermark, I’d say it’s a fair call to assume it was an exclusive copy for their studio alone. As to how it got out? Well it could have been leaked via transport to and from RSP to the studio or it might have just as well easily been one of the employees at either Fox or Rising Sun, as of yet neither have made a public statement regarding the leak.
Faraci even speculates that it might have been a disgruntled employee with an ulterior motive;
My source tells me that he suspects the person who leaked it may have been motivated by a grudge against the house where they work.
Either way it’s out now and it’s unlikely Fox will be able to do much to give those that watch it a ‘new’ experience when the film hits its theatre release date.
Perhaps Fox should dispatch Hugh Jackman to take down internet pirates
Katey Rich from CinemaBlend.com suggests that Fox just cut any potential losses at this point and try to spruce up the films release.
Fox has one ace up their sleeve, one movie coming out this year that nearly everyone is excited about: Avatar. The word has been lately that we won’t see a trailer, or even a single scene, from the movie until later this summer when Comic Con gets going. But if Fox can somehow pull together a trailer for Avatar and play it before Wolverine, they can recover from the enormous blow of the Wolverine piracy.
I’m not entirely convinced this will work, if Xmen Origins: Wolverine is as bad as Xmen 3 was then the only thing that could make it worse is the inclusion of a trailer for a westernised live action anime remake. Still, she’s got a point and it’s probably Fox’s best bet at this point although I have a sneaking suspicion most of us interested are going to wind up watching it at the theatres anyway.
April 2nd, 2009 at 6:04 pm Tony Clark(Quote)
In response to the recently stolen copy of the 20th Century Fox film ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ leaked to the Internet, Rising Sun Pictures (RSP) denies that it is in any way related to the unauthorised release of the material.
RSP Chairman and co-founder Tony Clark: “From the reports we’ve had, the stolen material is a work in progress version of the film with many incomplete sections. As we worked on such small sections of the film, neither RSP nor it’s staff members have even been in possession of anything like a completed version, so it would have been impossible for it to have been leaked from here.
It’s common practice for work in progress between us and the production to carry vendor watermarks and for these works in progress to be integrated into various edits of the film for screenings which would explain why our name appears.
April 2nd, 2009 at 6:23 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Thanks for that Tony, I appreciate your time to clarify the ins and outs of distribution of a film between the production and a third party company. I’ve read that the FBI are now involved and once they find out how it leaked I hope Fox publicly clear your company’s name. It’s rather unfortunate that your watermark was featured in the bootleg of the movie but I’m glad to hear it couldn’t have leaked from your end, cheers.
May 7th, 2009 at 11:25 pm Daniel(Quote)
any news on how this investigation is going?
who was responsible?
May 9th, 2009 at 11:40 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Hi Daniel, sorry for taking a while to reply.
As far as I know nobody has been charged yet and at this stage probably won’t be. Despite Fox claiming over 4 million illegal downloads Wolverine still managed to pull $158 million US on it’s opening weekend.
They’ve seen that it hasn’t made a dent in their profit so there’s not much point continuing the investigation. Don’t expect an announcement any time soon.