High Anticipation for "Wolverine" Could Prove That Piracy Impact On Business Is Exaggerated and Overblown

By: Garrett Thomas Posted: April 15, 2009 Filed under: Unofficial Info

It all comes down to what happens May 1st when X-Men Origins: Wolverine hits screens across the U.S. According to Entertainment Weekly it's the most anticipated movie among both young men and males over 31 years of age. In my mind it's the middle ground between these two demographics who make up the copious amounts of people who have downloaded the leaked workprint torrent and thus have no interest in seeing this travesty. TorrentFreak reports that it's been downloaded a million times as of April 13th but it's done very little to curb the excitement this film is generating. According to TorrentFreak's user polls, 40% would go see it even if they downloaded the workprint and only 6% think it will have a negative impact on box office.

What I'm genuinely curious about is not the film itself but what happens if it has a fantastic opening weekend. Will it satiate the pirate appetite that studio execs have for rampant torrenting? I don't think there's going to be a groundbreaking change but some impact will be felt at least in the short term. A sort of noose loosening around any pirate's neck if you will. It might silence others or cause some second guessing before the money they so greedily want to protect is spent on going after any culprits. They might take a closer look at what happened with the RIAA's war on music sharing. To me pirates are like Mom-Jeans: Sure it's ugly thing to look at but it's largely victimless, only a minority of the public are involved, and they aren't disappearing any time soon.

So while I wouldn't mind a strong opening weekend for Wolverine I do hope it tanks from May 4th on towards eternity. From what the trailers suggest along with other reveals of the film's subject matter, Fox's continual disregard for character canon and source material will most likely kill any interest in their future superhero adaptations for most fans. For me this pertains to Deadpool, as my second favorite 'hero' next to Spider-man. The alleged treatment they gave him leaves me hesitant to see this film on opening weekend, if at all. Regardless of the fact I thought Ryan Reynolds' casting was the perfect choice to play the wise-ass Wade Wilson, if what I've read regarding the plot is true it's simply too large of a cut to the original character's story.

[Source Entertainment Weekly via Slashfilm]