Theft and the Blogosphere

Wolverine's box office intake WILL be affected negatively

Ok, let's talk film. I am actually at this moment disappointed in my fellow bloggers out there. A great number of Movie Blog sites exist. I am not one in a "few" movie blogs. I am one in a thousand, maybe more. I do read other blogs to see how I measure up next to them. I see a lot of sites that are like mine. I see sites that display the current news and offer an opinion as I do. Though for the record, my thing here, my Schick, is that I offer a "reading between the lines" of articles. I cut through Hollywood Executive hogwash. Like when Warner announced it's reasons for moving Harry Potter to summer, I was here to give you the correct reasons and show you where he went wrong.
Who am I? You may never know. I may be someone who works in Hollywood and keeps his identity secret. Or I may be an unemployed, ex drunk who has seen one too many movies. With the insight I have, anything is possible.
One thing I am not is a thief. Sure in my younger, party days I was known to shoplift a candy bar or nail clippers on one stupid occasion, on a one time basis. However, I have not entered a life of burglary or larceny. I don't plan to.
This is why I am upset at my fellow bloggers. I have read on many, many sites that bloggers have seen the Wolverine leaked film and have blogged about it. Now, my fellow bloggers, this is theft. This is stealing. If you have downloaded the Wolverine film, you have committed an act of thievery. Look at the writer for FOX...

From Variety.com

But on Sunday afternoon Friedman told Daily Variety that he had not been let go.

Fox News released its own missive when asked on Sunday afternoon if Friedman had been ousted. "This is an internal matter that we're not prepared to discuss at this time," a Fox News spokesperson said.
For its part, the studio weighed in Friday with its own statement, calling Friedman's actions "reprehensible."
Friedman came under fire for posting a review of a pirated version of 20th Century Fox's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." Both Fox News and 20th Century Fox are divisions of parent company News Corp.
Friedman posted a review of the film Thursday, one day after an incomplete version of the tent pole was leaked on the Internet, a breach that occurred a month before the film's release and that could potentially cost the studio millions in box office receipts.
After Friedman's positive "Wolverine" review hit the Web, the fan boy blogging community, which had largely called for a boycott of any reviews of the film, immediately lobbied for Friedman's dismissal.

The article says that the "fanboy blogging community" called for a boycott. When I read the many reviews out there yesterday, I found that to be untrue. Now this is a big deal. Make no mistake about that. This wasn't a necromantic, pirated copy that you got a hold of and no one else saw. This was a straight up massive leak. And it seems that NO ONE was against it. Especially not the "fanboy blogging community" Someone, who I believe is a "higher up", gave the copy to someone else and it leaked all over the Internet.

From Slashfilm.com

This is perhaps the biggest leak for a major tentpole release in recent memory. Leaving aside the well-known phenomenon of Oscar screener leaks, workprint leaks have certainly happened in the past. For example, Eli Roth’s Hostel 2 leaked onto the internet several weeks before its release (in that situation, Roth was furious and blamed the leak for the film’s weak box office performance). Other films such as Rob Zombie’s Halloween and Michael Moore’s Sicko also experienced similar issue.

Now Hostel probably would not have preformed as well as Roth thinks it would. No one wants to see torture porn. But, ticket sales most likely declined due to his leak. It's the exponential factor here. Ten people see it with two or three other people. That's about 30 people. Those ten send it to a hundred other people. Those hundred other people have parties to watch it and now, it's really out there.
And watching any film once may be enough! As you know, when you see a movie, you may not want to watch it again because you have already seen it. Its a simple explanation. A good deal of the movie watching public won't watch a movie twice. Its not a bad thing. It's just how some people are and how some movies are. I can see The Empire Strikes Back 100 times and still want to see it again.
Wait a minute, you may think this is a fan boy site. This is a movie goer site, not just a fan boy site. Ok I did see Titanic three times in the theater. That was because I love James Cameron and I did this in the first couple weeks before it crossed over and was inherited solely by the female demographic. But I did see it three times so you can feel assured this is a site for all movie watchers.
Anyway, most movies, I believe, are one time viewings unless it's lightning in a bottle or a film you relate to and you have to see it twice or more, unless your significant other drags you. No that wasn't my attempt at feeble comedy, that is truth. I have been dragged to a few things myself.
Point here is, now that Wolverine is out there, it will be seen by about 3 million people by the time this is said and done. I would say that it would have taken in a good 55 million. Now, because of the leak, you can cut that number in half. It will do 30 if it's lucky.
Judging from that number, it won't get a sequel. So here you have loss of jobs, loss of future revenue. I think it is sad that this leak did happen due to arrogance at the top exec level.
I believe that everyone thinks this is all a joke. It's not. I don't think that stealing is a joke. I don't think that my fellow bloggers need to market their ignorance by posting reviews. It's sad. It's infantile. You're stealing away future jobs.
The next time this should happen, don't download it. Refuse it! Delete it! Let's all take a stand to protect filmmakers privacy in the process and our right and privilege to see the film and enjoy the fun of movie watching ONLY in it's completed form, in a movie theater with our fellow fans on opening day!