X Men's Wolverine Kills Roger Friedman

The heavily hyped and much anticipated X-Men Origins: Wolverine has caused the death of Roger Friedman's column for Fox News. His crime? Roger posted a review of a leaked copy of the film.

(Image of Hugh Jackman in X-Men Origins: Wolverine from 20th Century Fox - Release Date - May 1, 2009).

As a result of his action Fox News announced that company reps and Friedman "mutually agreed to part ways immediately." Ouch!

As was reported in various news outlets, Roger had been an entertainment writer who has contributed to FoxNews.com for 10 years.

Unfortunately Roger recently wrote in his Fox 411 column that downloading the 20th Century Fox X-Men prequel was "so much easier than going out in the rain" and the movie "exceeds expectations at every turn."

20th Century Fox was horrified by the review of a film that the movie studio described as a "stolen, incomplete and early version." The copy was immediately removed from the Web site. Fox News and 20th Century Fox are both units of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Roger was reviewing a stolen copy of a film produced by part of the corporation that he worked for. Definitely not a good career enhancing decision for Roger.

The movie, which is about Hugh Jackman's Wolverine superhero character, is not scheduled for official release until May 1. A leaked version began appearing online last week.

20th Century Fox promised that they would not rest until the source of the stolen film was prosecuted. 20th Century Fox also said the FBI and Motion Picture Association of America are investigating the leak.

I guess the only thing that could have made this whole experience for 20th Century and Roger Friedman would have been if he wrote a bad review of the film. He did write a glowing review. Unfortunately that did not save his job.

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