X-Men Apocalypse Producer Addresses Footage Leaks
No filmmaker likes it when their footage leaks online, but some take it more in stride than [...]
No filmmaker likes it when their footage leaks online, but some take it more in stride than others.
The X-Men franchise is, in fact, no stranger to the worst-case scenario: a near-completed film leaking online months ahead of its scheduled release date, as happened with X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
So after the X-Men: Apocalypse footage shown at Comic-Con International: San Diego appeared in bootlegs online, Slashfilm asked producer Hutch Parker for his take.
"I'd say it really isn't intended to be leaked. It's really intended to excite a core. From a marketing perspective, what they want is to share it with the most discerning eyes that are out there for this material. It's the biggest and probably most intense focus group any of us ever have," Parker opined. "The problem with the theory about the marketing is, I don't actually think it's good marketing. Leaking footage a year in advance of a movie's release is not such a good thing. The reason you don't see footage out that far is you run the risk of it getting stale. Generally speaking, and I can't speak for other studios — I can't even speak for Fox any more — but I don't believe their intention is [for footage to be leaked]. I think their intention is to get the most important opinions and opinion-makers in this community engaged in the promise of what's coming."
You can see the link above for some more details he gave.
Of course, after each new leak of footage, there's discussion online about whether the leak was intentional -- a conversation that went viral following ecstatic online response to the Deadpool test footage which leaked, ultimately prompting Fox to greenlight the movie.
X-Men: Apocalypse debuts in U.S. theaters on May 27, 2016.
See the rest of Marvel, WB, Fox, and more's comic book movies on our full release schedule here.
