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<em>Wolverine</em> Bootlegger Facing Possible Jail Time
By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 6, 2011
Modified Apr 6, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 6, 2011
Modified Apr 6, 2011
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Gilberto Sanchez is a very unlucky man: in 2009, he uploaded a bootleg version of the Hugh Jackman technicolor musical X-Men Origins: Wolverine on the internet, which was then downloaded a couple hundred times before being removed. It's the kind of thing that happens every day on torrent sites for just about every movie, but Sanchez made one grave error: he posted the "work print" (unfinished copy) of the movie more than a month before it was released. And now he could be facing up to three years in an adamantium jail.
“I’m a scapegoat for this. I’m gonna get crucified,” Sanchez told the Times. Sanchez bought the movie from an asian man selling bootlegs in his Parkchester neighborhood for five dollars. He couldn't believe how good the quality was, even though there were special effects and music missing: “So we see a string pulling up Hugh Jackman,” he shrugged later. 20th Century Fox, the studio behind the movie, which was a tentpole summer "event" film, was pissed—the FBI tracked Sanchez down two weeks later, and he was arrested. As the News hilariously notes, "The mysterious Asian man remains at large."
Sanchez, a father of one whose parents live with him, pleaded guilty to violating U.S. copyright law last month, and will face sentencing in September; his punishment could range from probation, a slap on the wrist, to a maximum of three years in prison. Sanchez admits he made a "stupid" mistake, and he said he was motivated to post it because of "some sort of Internet prestige thing." Despite the leak, Wolverine went on to gross over $350 million worldwide at the box office, which brings up another point—that movie sucked more than that time Cyclops abandoned his wife and baby to get back in touch with his ex-girlfriend who his wife was cloned from.
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Bootleg
film
gilberto sanchez
movies
wolverine
x-men
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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