Fox Fires Columnist For 'Reviewing' Leaked Copy Of Wolverine
from the calling-more-attention... dept
Last week, we discussed why it looked like movie studio 20th Century Fox was overreacting to the leak of a workprint copy of the upcoming movie Wolverine. The studio could have easily used the leak to get good publicity. Instead, it's freaking out and rushing around trying to blame everyone. The latest person caught in the crossfire? A columnist for Fox News who downloaded the leaked copy and wrote a review... Since both 20th Century Fox and Fox News are owned by News Corp., the studio flipped out and the writer, Roger Friedman, has supposedly been fired. For what? For actually admitting that the movie was out there? It's not like it hasn't been all over the news. For calling more attention to the fact that the movie can be downloaded? Firing Friedman seems to be getting a lot more attention than the review actually did. Once again, just because you have the legal right to do something about infringement, doesn't mean it makes any sense. Here's yet another case of a Hollywood studio letting its legal rights override common sense, and because of that, it's harming its own reputation.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: fired, leak, movie, review, roger friedman, wolverine
Companies: 20th century fox, fox news, news corp.
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
At first I didn't care
It's interesting to see how much is CG and how much is real. It's also interesting to see how little is CG in a movie like this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: At first I didn't care
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: At first I didn't care
While so many of the fight scenes in the second were contrived and were added merely to show off their powers. Like, "Let's have them start a fight for no reason in the cafeteria" or "Let's have them blow up police cars for no reason at their parents' house."
But I have to admit, the opening scene with Nightcrawler in the second was pretty awesome. At least it had a point related to the overall plot.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It simply makes no sense for Fox news to ignore this huge story, that the movie Wolverine was leaked, and pretend it never happened. All this is doing is putting yet another nail in the coffin of "legitimate" news agencies.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Studios freaking out
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There are some reports that he wasn't actually fired. Maybe the whole thing is a media stunt, or maybe Fox was trying to save face at first.
Either way, I have no plans to see this movie (I'm not even willing to hassle with a download). I heard they ruined Deadpool. Not from the leaked film, but from the toy line. Deadpool is a great character, and getting him right could have launched spin-offs that I would like to see.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Never.
I don't think the movie will do well because it's poorly written, but I think they'll blame it on this leak anyway.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
They had deadpool having a wolverine like claw coming out of his arm, and it looked like his eyes glowed. Also, the damage to his skin seemed to be from surgical operations.
Here's a link to another toy. I can't find the original one I saw.
http://www.10mfh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/deadpool.jpg
Either way, it looked like they took a character with a decent following and ruined him for the movie.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And this is important? Why?
One good thing about Netflix, it lets you find and watch movies that are movies. Most of the good stuff these days is coming from foreign studios where the art of storytelling hasn't been buried by studio blockbusteritis.
Maybe if we ignore those idiots they'll finally go away.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It was probably a bad idea to admit to pirating anything, let alone something made by a branch of the company that employs him. Yeah, Fox is over-reacting to the leak in that special way that only movie studios can, but I can't see how this was anything but a dumb move on Friedman's part.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
But, instead of Fox firing him, they should have used the review anyway.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Was it a dumb move to do this without permission? Yeah, if his primary priority was job security. But it illustrates the idiocy of file-sharing's negative connotation, that he can merely view a movie at no harm to anybody else for the purpose of covering the news and be fired for it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
A better way to go about it was delete the review, tell the employee to refuse questions about it and pretend it never happened. Then just tug on the employees choke chain a bit to let him know he pissed off the wrong people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Being Fired
I doubt the bloke got fired because of the review -- he got fired for putting News Corp in a position where they could be sued by 20th Century Fox. And that's a problem no media company ever wants to get in.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
W00T!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The encouragement factor
I think it is all stupid and sad, but there you are. The reviewer was also very naive to do so when working for the studio's sister company, when it is well understood most executive have tiny brains and constantly have rulers out to measure "themselves" against other execs. Once an exec publicly declared 'off with his head', no doubt he'd move heaven and earth to make it so.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]