War of the Worlds premiere cancelled due to piracy fears, yarrrr!

**miker** · June 6th, 2005, 10:09 AM

So the reign of terror is working out then?

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23727

A WORLD premiere of the latest version of the HG Wells tale The War of the Worlds, was pulled at the last minute because of a fear of Internet pirates.
Movie distributor UIP said on Friday that it was cancelling a gala world premiere the flick at the Tokyo Budokan because of fears that illegal copies of the film would be made and circulated on the Internet ahead of its June 29 worldwide simultaneous release.

Personally I think the film hasn't been finished yet and since it's not the American premiere nobody give a shit. But get the boot into the pirates, yarrrrr!

**jb_617** · June 6th, 2005, 10:49 AM

Of course, if you get your news from a service that isn't run by over-exited 5 year olds, you get the real story. The premiere was not cancelled, it was moved to a different venue. And I would hardly call over a week in advance "last minute".

The main reason for the switch, apart from fear of patent/IP violations, was that the organisers were concerned that not enough security was allocated to the film's stars when they were being introduced to fans. Make of that what you will. To me it sounds like Cruise threw a strop, but there you go.

Anyway, don't believe everything you read kids. Well, unless it comes from the Associated Press. Or Reuters, or AFP, or...well this joke's gone on long enough. Those supposed "truth" sites have a lot to answer for in regards to sloppy and misleading journalism.

The premiere will take place on the same date as originally planned, June 13th.

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"Don't believe the hype" - Public Enemy.

[ June 06, 2005 07:53 AM: Message edited by: jb. ]

**miker** · June 7th, 2005, 11:57 AM

Well, it's quite easy to see how the story may have been misnterpreted:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...lm/4609979.stm

In a statement released on its website earlier in the week, UIP said: "To our regret, we have decided to cancel the showing because of safety concerns."

It said there were not sufficient measures in place to provide the film's stars with security during their appearance in front of fans.

But in a press release issued on Sunday UIP said: "Paul Takaki, president of UIP Japan, said today that he is extremely proud to be hosting the world premiere and looks forward greatly to welcoming Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning to Japan."

**jb_617** · June 7th, 2005, 12:17 PM

But the first paragraph of that article is:

The world premiere of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds has been moved to a new venue in Tokyo due to security fears.

That article is dated the 5th of June, the day before The Inquirer article. So if they copied it from the BBC then I can't see how it is "quite easy" to misinterprit it. The second BBC paragraph is:

There were reports the premiere of the Tom Cruise film had been canceled altogether however distributor UIP said that was untrue.

So I don't know where The Inquirer got their story from? UIP issued a statement on June 4th the next day after the mistaken reports from Japan and most reputable wire services picked up the story in their "entertainment" sections. This is one of the many hundreds of similar stories from Saturday.

So, no Miker, you can't defend The Inquirer. Its article was written on the 6th. Fully 2 days after the whole story was known. It's inexcusable. My suspicion is that Nick Farrell simply has his head up his arse. This is just another example of hysterical fear-mongers trying to spread their disinformation for personal gain. Bunch of frauds the lot of them.

My advice to you is research things before you post them.

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"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad." - Aldous Huxley

[ June 07, 2005 09:20 AM: Message edited by: jb. ]