CBR: "Wolverine" Downloaded 4 Million Times

[CBR News]

20th Century Fox has upped the download figure for an unfinished pirated
version of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" from 1 million to 4 million. Nevertheless, the
film was the biggest weekend opening of 2009 so far.


Full article here.

[apoehler]

The real headline for this story should be "Fox pulls made-up statistic out of a$$".

[_OM_]

The real headline for this story should be "Fox pulls made-up statistic out of a$$".

...No, at least one million downloads of the torrent were registered over about 35 different torrent servers, with the lion...er...wolverine's share going to Pirate Bay, natch. Fox does what every other company whining about piracy does: quadruple the number of illegal downloads suspected, take the amount of sales lost, and quadruple that number again. What's hurt Fox's claims of being all butthurt through their wallets is the opening weekend numbers for the film. Had it been a flop, they'd finally had something to back up their bogus claims.

Bottom Line: Piracy only affects films that are crap to begin with, because it protects viewers from wasting their hard-earned bucks by blindly taking a chance on the film on the opening weekend before all the real reviews coming out. That's what Hollyweird is scared frackless of - their ability to throw crap on the screen and sucker viewers out of their cash before it's obvious said crap isn't sticking to the screen very well, if at all.

OM's Law #TBD: If Annie Hall had been available on the Torrents, it would have never gotten an Oscar, much less lasted a week in the theaters.

[cherphas]

Didn't Fox sue Warner for rights to the Watchmen film? I don't know the details, but based on what I heard about it on forums and articles, it sounded to me that Fox was kinda screwing Warner into getting a percentage of the film. Can somebody fill me in on the details? Anyways, I'm just saying if that's the case then maybe they shouldn't be whining about other people taking their stuff... unless Warner really took theirs :)

[builttoill]

they still got way more money than they deserved for such a crummy movie. i bet that they leaked it themselves so they could skimp in the final effects, cause the final effects only looked good when compared to the unfinished version.

[americocaine]

Hard to believe so many people actually went to see this turd. A Marvel turd (TM). Getting flushed down the toilet when the Paramount Turdburglar (TM) comes to town.

[navi410]

I enjoyed more than Watchmen . It's a popcorn flick nice fx nice action scene very little plot but still enjoyable.

[mgs]

Bottom Line: Piracy only affects films that are crap to begin with

That's only an assumption, like how you say they come up with the numbers.

Piracy, in ANY form, is going to act negatively on the final product. It's just a matter of how much.

[kalorama]

It's a mystery why people seem to have so much emotional investment in hating this movie.

[Darrell D.]

Didn't Fox sue Warner for rights to the Watchmen film? I don't know the details, but based on what I heard about it on forums and articles, it sounded to me that Fox was kinda screwing Warner into getting a percentage of the film. Can somebody fill me in on the details? Anyways, I'm just saying if that's the case then maybe they shouldn't be whining about other people taking their stuff... unless Warner really took theirs :)

Basically, Fox had acquired the rights to Watchmen years ago They opted out of making the movie,but the contract they had indicated that they had first turn-down rights. A producer (Lawrence Gordon) was trying to get the movie made, first at Paramount and next at WB. Fox was never given the turn down option when the movie was greenlit at WB. Fox (allegedly) informed WB when the production was announced. WB (allegedly) ignored them. Fox (allegedly) told WB again when production started on the film. WB(allegedly) ignored them.
Fox took WB to court, fans on the internet suddenly became experts in how Hollywood and the transfer of rights work, some got really butt-hurt, while others tried to be humorous and failed (See: Eat a Dick, Fox). Others threatened to boycott future Fox films, such as Wolverine. Not surprisingly, Fox didn't seem fazed by the empty threat of 'WolvieFan3453'.
Fox was the evil Empire, WB somehow the poor underdog Rebels. The two studios reach an agreement, which was no surprise to the more rational fans on the net who were amused by the overreaction by the more ..umm..exuberant fans.
The movie was released, and while no one is saying 'bomb' yet, the fact remains that the movie underperformed at the box office.
The journey to the movie's production was probably more interesting than the final product.

[Darrell D.]

It's a mystery why people seem to have so much emotional investment in hating this movie.

Hey, remember when it looked like Fox was going to stop WB from releasing Watchmen, based on a court order and suddenly the executives at Fox were baby eating goblins who raped kittens for fun, while the executives at WB were the moral, upstanding citizens who were being victimized?
It's kind of like that.

[John Aston]

Seems like a business opportunity to me with an audience willing to bypass theaters for their product.

[adamthered]

It's a mystery why people seem to have so much emotional investment in hating this movie.

Didn't you know it's what all the cool kids are doing :rolleyes:

[DeadXMan]

the cool kids are the lone rebels. doing it their way.

so if everyone hates wolverine

the cool kids will like it.

[builttoill]

there is no such thing as cool kids.