Hugh Jackman, who plays superhero Wolverine in the new X-Men movie, said Wednesday he was heartbroken that the film was leaked on the internet a month before its official release.
The Australian star of X-Men Origins: Wolverine said the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was on the case and he believed the culprit would be found.
It s a serious crime and there s no doubt it s very disappointing – I was heartbroken by it, Jackman told reporters at a promotion for the movie in Sydney.
The leaked version of the 20th Century Fox action movie was reportedly downloaded tens of thousands of times within a day of being posted on file-sharing websites at the end of March.
Obviously, people are seeing an unfinished film, Jackman said. It s like a Ferrari without a paint job.
The 40-year-old Hollywood heartthrob, named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine last year, said he was convinced that whoever had posted the copy would be tracked down.
The FBI are on to it and they re taking it very, very seriously, he said. Rest assured that person will be found.
Jackman arrived by helicopter on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbor, where some of the movie was filmed, for the first stop of a world promotion tour ahead of its official release at the end of the month.
He then delighted hundreds of invited guests and media by swooping down from a cliff top on a cable before unveiling 20 minutes of completed footage.
Jackman said he was heartened by the fact that most people had condemned the leak and thought fans would still go to see it at the cinema.
The leak has already claimed at least one casualty – a US entertainment columnist who was fired for reviewing a stolen copy downloaded from the internet.
Rupert Murdoch s News Corporation, which owns both 20th Century Fox Films and Fox News, said writer Roger Friedman had been promptly terminated after posting his column on the Fox News website last week.
We, along with 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, have been a consistent leader in the fight against piracy and have zero tolerance for any action that encourages and promotes piracy, News Corporation said in an emailed statement.
When we advised Fox News of the facts they took immediate action, removed the post, and promptly terminated Mr Friedman.
The X-Men film, based on the eponymous comic book characters, was apparently spread with BitTorrent file-sharing technology that lets people exchange large data files between computers. -AFP
