Who knew that X-Men Origins: Wolverine's release date was bumped up to April Fool's Day? Not Fox, that for sure. Copies of the work print for the upcoming movie, an early version of the movie lacking in visual effects, sound editing, and possibly extra scenes has been passed around BitTorrent sites all day. Inquiring minds, particularly those at Fox (who are threatening to sue the person responsible for leaking the copy) have to be asking: How did this happen?
Wolverine isn't the first movie to be leaked onto the Internet. Script leaks have been commonplace for a long time in Hollywood, however, an early version of an entire movie is somewhat rare. Hulk leaked two weeks early in 2003 (and then proved to be a dud at the box office), and the leaked ending of Terminator Salvation forced the filmmakers into creating a new one. CHUD reports that the Wolverine leak could be traced to any part of the movie post-production process, from the digital effects department, to someone working on titles or even the eventual DVD version of the movie. An industry source told CHUD that this kind of leak should happen more often and that copies of a Wolverine DVD have been passed around for the last couple of weeks.
While CHUD and other early "reviewers" claim there is no "watermark" or company logo visible on the workprint, TorrentFreak reports that a brief message appears early on saying "Rising Sun Pictures" as well as a date, March 2, 2009. Rising Sun Pictures is an Australian visual effects company that has worked on Batman Begins, Watchmen, Terminator Salvation the Harry Potter movies as well as X-Men Origins: Wolverine. No word as of yet whether they are indeed the guilty party.