It’s just criminal
It’s called a trailer. It’s the bits of a film a distributor shows you ahead of the theatrical release of the film, in order to try and convince you to pay for a cinema ticket and watch it it on the big screen.
The big screen. That’s where a movie like this – an effects-laden summer ‘tentpole’ – belongs. I’ll be honest with you, it’s not really my cup of tea. I’ve never loved the X-Men, I’m more of a Batman kind of guy.
But I do appreciate that it’s films like this that enable a studio like Fox to give such broad distribution to smaller titles, often under their Searchlight label. Films like The Darjeeling Limited, which was one of my favourite films in 2008.
I’m not saying that those smaller movies can’t stand on their own two feet. Just that Fox wouldn’t take a chance if they weren’t confident of being able to do good money on more mainstream movies. Movies like Wolverine.
That’s why, when a work print for the movie appears online a full month ahead of release, it’s bad for all of us, whatever kind of movies we like.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happened, consituting one of the most high profile movie leaks of all time.
Anyone conversant in the language of BitTorrent and peer-to-peer file sharing – of whom I am not one – can now quite easily download and watch a full two hour version of Wolverine.
This already happens with a huge number of films already released, doing an estimated $18bn of damage to the global home entertainment industry annually.
However, with a film like this leaked so far ahead of its theatrical release, we could be looking at tens of millions of dollars being taken of the Wolverine’s potential worldwide box office gross.
In this case, the overlap between the core target audience for this movie and the kind of people who know how to download pirate movies must be particularly worrying – we’re talking about internet fanboys all the way, many of whom will surely be highly tempted to save themselves the price of a cinema ticket.
More worrying still – they are likely to be highly vocal about the film, through the many blogs, forums and chat rooms they call home.
Few films benefit from being raked over the coals in this manner, especially when they are work prints missing twenty minutes of re-shot material and the bulk of the CGI. Because, well, take the CGI out of Wolverine and what you’ve got is Hugh Jackman, in a muscle vest, armed with nothing more dangerous than a pair of big old mutton chops.
It’s hard to imagine how disappointing this must be for the team of film-makers who shepherded this project this far. It’s easy for ’serious’ film fans to sneer at this kind of popcorn movie, but you only have to speak to the guys working at the graphics labs and post-production houses to realise that there is always a huge amount of pride and passion invested to deliver a movie with these kind of production values.
In that respect, piracy isn’t just theft from the studio, cheating them of potential box office dollars.
You’re stealing from people who put something more than time or money into a project, robbing them of the opportunity to find the broadest possible audience for their creation. It’s a bit like telling someone how The Usual Suspects ends. You’re taking something you can’t give back.
From my point of view, this is always going to be a particularly thorny issue. I love the industry I work in, and the work I do, so it worries me to think that the conditions of film production could be jeopardised as a result of this kind if thing.
In this instance, I have an even greater incentive to make my feelings known, in that today is the launch of You Make The Movies, a UK Industry Trust initiative conceived to reinforce the importance of supporting the UK film industry, and condemning video piracy in its various forms.
This is something my wife’s firm, Blue Rubicon, have co-ordinated, and this seems like serendipitous opportunity for me to lend my support.
The internet has changed movie marketing and distribution in so many ways. Now that all we peasants have rifles, and are able to post our views anonymously, the old embargo model is looking kind of shaky.
The point I made, and I stand by it, is that it’s no longer just a case of being careful what we write, or publish, release, but also a case of being careful about what we read, and what we watch, to make sure we aren’t robbing ourselves of something irreplaceable.
The internet is an essentially democratic medium – anyone can and should be able to speak. But that doesn’t mean for a minute that all of us have to listen.
[Update 09:29 02/04/09 - The UK Industry Trust have three campaign TV spots hitting screens today. This is is my favourite of the three:
There are some nice equivalents for Jaws and Life of Brian. As a committed sweder of films, I like the campaign.]
April 2nd, 2009 at 8:49 am
As a reformed bittorrenter let me add these points of view as well.
Much of what disappointed me as a viewer though has been that whilst a huge budget has gone into the film and its production one cant help but feel like cattle in a market place being shunted around inside a cinema. The conditions of which are always the inverse of the quality viewing screens you have exposed me to.
This sort of leak sometimes seems well placed to help encourage the argument for tighter restrictions, DRM and controls on the internet however I suspect if you investigated the percentages of people torrenting the film vs those attending the cinema I would imagine the story is greater than the number.
Yours is a refreshingly enlightened view to the issues of this copying but I wonder if the producers would be as eager to improve the experience of viewing which would be a easier investment than an on going war of tit for tat copyright restrictions, management and control.