I've been watching the story about the leak of the unfinished "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" film unfold and waiting for an arrest of the scoundrel who would do such a thing. It's not like when Fiona Apple or Wilco had tracks from albums leaked -- those releases were originally rejected by their record labels and might otherwise have been shelved. To make available an unfinished product that gives away key plot points of a gazillion-dollar enterprise that has involved many years of hundreds of people's lives ... maybe it's me, but I don't get the thrill of doing such a thing.
Of course, I'm not a thrill-seeker by nature. So please, someone explain the joy in trying to ruin someone else's work. What's the payoff? Who has the last laugh? Who gets to laugh at all?
Not Roger Friedman, who was fired from his post as chief entertainment columnist for FoxNews.com because he reviewed a pirated movie.
Semantics are a key in Friedman losing his job. Fox called Friedman's actions "reprehensible," and it's worth noting, as Variety did in reporting the story, that "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" comes from 20th
Century Fox -- both Fox News and 20th Century Fox are
divisions of parent company News Corp. But bloggers went ballistic when they saw that Friedman had written about the leaked movie, and Fox took action seemingly based on the bad reviews of Friedman's review.
The Associated Press also corrected its initial story that appeared April 6. It had reported that Friedman downloaded a print of the movie. "However, Friedman contends he encountered the movie during an unrelated Internet search and pressed “play” to watch it," the correction said.
No matter what, the movie that was supposed to kick off the summer blockbuster season is off to an unnecessarily controversial start.
Maybe it will work out as it did for Fiona Apple and Wilco. Both of their releases, post leak, went on to be big hits.
Posted
Apr 10 2009, 04:18 PM
by
Sharon Eberson