The LA Times is reporting that the feds have opened an investigation into how the tape in question was obtained. The Post's explanation is that "A source provided us with the tape, no copies were made, and we have returned the tape to Mr. Gibson's representatives." Undoubtedly though, that isn't the end of the matter.
"Our biggest concern here is that a major media organization would become involved with pirates to concoct a news story to sell newspapers," George Hedges, an entertainment lawyer representing Gibson and his company, Icon Entertainment, said Thursday. "For someone to feel the license to do this is just outrageous."
Certainly the Post has never been considered a bastion of journalistic integrity but to print an article like this, based on obtaining a copy of the film under dubious circumstances, shows an amazing lack of ethics. Internet sites run reviews of films all the time based on early screenings but these are studio sanctioned screenings. Reviewing a tape the Post itself admits is of dubious quality is questionable at best. It's only one step removed from actually breaking into Gibson's office to steal a print of the film.
What's most amazing to me is that at a time when it is highly reported how much the MPAA is pursuing pirated copies of films that a newspaper would go public with its own piracy. Clearly the desire to sell papers and scoop the world on this story blinded the paper's editors to the rather obvious legal ramifications of the article.
This year the MPAA shut out the press from receiving screening copies of Oscar contending movies. The ban was put in place to fight piracy. It has been mentioned by many, myself included that it is a ridiculous notion that a critic would jeopardize their career for the sake of distributing illegal copies of a film. Apparently that idea wasn't so ridiculous after all. It just takes one case like this and the trust between studio and journalists is destroyed. The Post will almost certainly lose a civil suit on the matter and will almost certainly be fined for their actions. But explain to me how they will repay their peers for damaging our collective reputation and worse yet, making Jack Valenti correct about piracy for once.
Box Office
I swore off discussing the box office in late summer because I was getting sick of analyzing the incessant trend of a movie's big launch followed by a big crash the next week. It was growing tiresome and spoke of a trend in marketing that has been growing steadily uglier over the years. But I'm ready to talk about the box office again and largely because of a film that appears to have broken that cycle, Elf. The Will Ferrell starring comedy has obviously been getting very good word of mouth because in its second week it barely dipped from its strong opening and now in its third week, the trend appears to be holding. It brought in about $19.3 million, off less than a third from its first week. The bad news is that this figure places it third behind this week's new films, the critically trashed The Cat in the Hat ($39.3 million) and the half baked Gothika ($19.5 million). Further bad news is that Master and Commander slipped heavily in its second week, off 43% to $14.3 million. It's a solid film but clearly not getting the same kind of word of mouth as Elf. Also taking a beating are Brother Bear, Looney Toons: Back in Action and The Matrix Revolutions which all dropped closed to 60% from the previous week. So while Elf is breaking the cycle, there are four movies in the top ten that seem hell bent on making up for its lack of failure.