Thanks to the six-year-old site April Fool’s Day On The Web, there isn’t much need for me to link to film-related gags that can be found on the Internet today. And thanks to Cinematical’s annual roundup, you’ve probably already been clued into some of the best film foolery, including the very cool, very unfortunately fake Empire Strikes Back-referencing Tauntaun Sleeping Bag posted on ThinkGeek. Regardless, I’m going to sample some of the most creative of bloggery bamboozlement. Because there isn’t any other story that’s funnier or more interesting than the stuff that was made up for this special occasion.

Okay, I lied (April Fool’s!). There is a story that is indeed much funnier and more interesting than a few fakeouts involving Iron Man 2, Batman 3 and the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot. And I’m calling the double-edged story payback for Fox’s 3D greed, which I wrote about yesterday. Here is the story, play-by-play, as reported on the blogs:

• As far as I know, Drew McWeeney at HitFix was the first to bring light to the the first blow to the studio:
  

  20th Century Fox is about to have an interesting practical test on one of their biggest summer films.  “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” leaked online today in what appears to be a near-finished DVD quality rip, marred only by a few unfinished FX shots.  As soon as files go up, they’re coming right back down as Fox legal chases pirates around the web, but that toothpaste is out of the tube, gentlemen.  And that sucks.

• At first, it seemed almost too good (or too bad) to be true, admits Cole Abaius at Film School Rejects:
  

  If it hadn’t clocked in before midnight for April 1st, this story could have easily ended up in the slush pile that quickly fills up with every film site’s attempt at lying to their readers under the guise of playing a wacky prank…However, this bad boy came through the tubes under the wire. Apparently, and confirmedly, a DVD-quality, non-watermarked, sans time code version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine hit the internet with the force of a box of free TRON shirts in a Comic-Con crowd.

• And while some blogs decided not to run the story, because any attention encourages the piracy (I couldn’t care less if I’m drawing attention to it; besides I’m so late in doing so), other sites had messages like this one at Aint It Cool News:
  

  I hate running this story, but the deluge is about to come. Forums on other movie news sites are already overrun with links and reactions to a fairly high quality studio workprint that leaked this evening - and I don’t care to comment on any of it because I don’t want to encourage piracy at a time when the studios are laying off employees in droves. This is bad, bad, bad for the business.

• In addition to also discouraging readers from downloading the film and posting reviews to the web, Robert Sanchez at IESB.net wants to help in the clean up:
  

  Our readers and friends can help fight piracy by sending me any links and reporting any websites that are making this movie available for download. You can send the links to me, robert@iesb.net, and I will forward them to our friends over at 20th Century Fox.

• Lane Brown at Vulture points to an irony other than that instant karma I’m celebrating:
  

  it’s safe to assume heads are rolling at Fox this morning — while Oscar movies leak all the time, it’s generally rare for $100 million tentpoles to escape in DVD quality a full month before their release. Also, hilariously, Fox selected today of all days to have poor Hugh Jackman announce a contest giving fans a chance to “host the world premiere of Wolverine in your town.” Everyone’s a winner! (Except for the studio employee who misplaced his screener and will never be heard from again.)

• The Playlist suggests an unlikely option for the studio:
  

  Will Fox respond by bumping up the release date much like record labels have done with album releases or is the film perhaps not quite ready yet and still has a few tweaks to contend with? There were reshoots early this year and that could have bumped the schedule right to the limits of the official release date.

• Scott Mendelson at Film Threat offers up a more likely solution:
  

  If this cut is not the final cut, then the only plausible reason to leak it (aside from just creating chaos) would be if it was a prior version that represented director Gavin Hood’s preferred version.  That would be the best case scenario for Fox, as if it really is a ‘director’s cut’, then the geeks will now still have to see the final product in theaters for comparison.  My advice to Fox - spend the next month emphasizing how different the leaked cut is to the final print, regardless of whether that’s true.

• Jackson West at NewTeeVee explains why the movie will still be a success before arguing for another unlikely solution for the future:
  

  If Hollywood is serious about stopping these sorts of leaks, it should stop complaining about the Internet and give employees and subcontractors stakes in the profits. After all, post-production crew working long hours and earning day rates could really care less if a movie does well in the market. And trust me, this one will still make plenty of money.

• Still, while unlikely, that may be the best solution, at least if Devin Faraci’s assessment of the leak over at CHUD.com is to be taken seriously.
  

  I have a feeling that the Wolverine leak is the tip of the iceberg. My source tells me that he suspects the person who leaked it may have been motivated by a grudge against the house where they work - perhaps someone who has been laid off or had his hours reduced (although to be fair he did also say that it’s just as likely that this leak came from a dumb intern who simply made a copy for a friend. My friend has no actual knowledge of the particulars of this specific leak). The ease with which a DVD can be ripped and disseminated makes it child’s play, and the ubiquity of laptops make it simpler and simpler for someone to rip a movie without even taking the disc off premises. Studios can keep being worried about someone sneaking a Flip camcorder into a press screening, but the real problem is right in their own system. So far they’ve been amazingly lucky, but how long can that luck hold out?

• Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily shares Fox’s initial reaction to the leak:
  

  Fox executives are describing it to me as one of the worst piracy scandals they can recall, since it involves a major studio and major movie. The studio is understandably in a panic…The execs say it may contain an April Fool’s virus. But even if the studio claims that viewers of the pirated copy will age 20 years overnight, that isn’t going to solve the problem. Toughness will.

• And finally, William Goss at Cinematical pretends to have recieved a press release from Fox stating that the movie will now be substantially reworked before hitting theaters. A satirical quote:
  

  “Look,” said CEO Tom Rothman in a prepared statement, “[expletive] those weaselly little mother[expletive]ers that couldn’t hold onto their [expletive]ing horses to see this film and pay to do so. This is our way of sticking it to the so-called ‘fans’ who managed to show up for three of these flicks and purported to be willing to show up for this one, even though the last one was a total piece of [expletive].”

• For the next part of the Fox’s Bad Day story, Erik Davis at Cinematical shares some embarrassing news about Fox’s Slumdog Millionaire DVD release:
  

  We’ve been receiving a ton of emails here at Cinematical from folks who bought bad copies of the Slumdog Millionaire DVD. What happened was that some DVDs entered the marketplace without any of the special features on them; one Cinematical reader wrote in to say that all he got was the movie and a few trailers.

• Nikki Finke had word of this fuckup earlier, so I’ll link to her before citing the complaint hotline info for those of you who got screwed:
  

  DVD Alert: We are aware that special features were missing from a number of Slumdog Millionaire DVDs. Fox has set up a hotline telephone number (1-888-223-4FOX) for those consumers who may have purchased a version that does not contain special features. Upon calling the hotline, these consumers will be able to have their disc replaced for one containing special features. Fox regrets any inconvenience this has caused.

• Kudos to Mark Graham at Vulture for tying this story to the other recent DVD snafu involving Let the Right One In:
  

  What started out as a bad day for Fox just got worse. Turns out there is a bad batch of Slumdog Millionaire DVDs floating around that do not contain the special features that are advertised on the box (deleted scenes, making of, etc.). Still no word on the subtitles, though.

• A commenter at Cinematical links to a recent article at Video Business Magazine revealing how such a mistake might have happened. Fox’s lame, money grubbing intentions:
  

  20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, in an effort to invigorate slack DVD sales, is creating two classes of discs: premium versions with added-value material such as digital copy for the sell-through market and stripped-down offerings for rental…

  …The rental DVD of Slumdog, for instance, carries only the movie and trailers, but the retail DVD also has special features including deleted scenes and commentaries. The rental Blu-ray Disc does have the bonus features, but the retail Blu-ray adds digital copy.