I had so much fun drawing Deadpool for Wednesday’s comic, I decided to toss him in to the incentive image I have posted over at Top Web Comics. And even though I know he doesn’t appear with his mask in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I don’t care. It simply looks too cool NOT to draw.

To see the incentive sketch, vote for Theater Hopper at Top Web Comics. In case you missed the announcement from the other day, I’m including a teaser in the blog post that links to the site. So you can kind of see some of the incentive sketch peeking through.

If your planning on voting at all, today is the day to do it. Since it’s May 1, the Top Web Comic counters have reset and everyone now has an equal shot of landing in the Top 10. Well, for the next few days, at least. Vote now and maybe we can take an early lead!

Now onto more serious matters…

As I am sure you are well aware, X-Men Origins: Wolverine opens in theaters today officially launching the summer blockbuster season. Reviews are starting to filter in and it’s averaging pretty low scores – 37% positive at Rotten Tomatoes as of this morning. I imagine that number will move more toward the middle once everything is said and done. Most of the reviews I’ve read seem to agree that the performances are very good and Hugh Jackman proves why people love him so much in this role.

Interesting side note, Hugh Jackman is the first actor to play a comic book hero in four consecutive films since Christopher Reeve as Superman. Thanks, IMDB!

It appears that the downside to the film appears to be that it’s overdone. Everything from the epic, century-long storyline, overabundance of mutants and lip service cameos. Jeffery Wells from Hollywood Elsewhere shared on April 28 that a ” credible Australian critic… ‘caught a screening… and the bad buzz is spot-on. Clunky script, unfocused plotting, cheesy special effects and terrible production values. Nearly everything looks like a set and what doesn’t look like a set looks like CG’.”

Personally, I think Fox always knew that it had a clunker on it’s hands. How else can you explain the marketing surrounding this thing? Everything from the awkward, snicker-inducing teaser played at San Diego Comic Con last year, to reports of reshoots, to the over-abundant and hyper-localized advertising, to (probably most damaging) the leek of the nearly-completed film to the internet a few weeks before the film opened in theaters. Fox has bungled this from the word “Go.”

Look at the leak in particular. On April 2, Fox head Tom Rothman claimed that the leak was an ‘unfinished version,’ ‘a complete misrepresentation of the film’ and months-old. By April 22, blogs figured out that the leaked version was the exact same running time as the final version and called Fox liars. Then, on April 29, Fox issued a statement saying they weren’t liars. Rothman was giving statements based on incomplete information.

Gee, how’d they ever manage to lose that work print to the internet in the first place? They seem so organized!

I have a tiny conspiracy theorist who lives in my head. I call him George and I occasionally like to feed him theories to ponder. George is starting to wonder out loud if Fox didn’t leak the film on purpose. This is not a new theory. Others have suggested it. But the more you think about it, the more it starts to make sense.

Imagine you are Tom Rothman and you have a $130 million tent-pole movie kicking off the summer blockbuster season. Early buzz is bad and your pouring untold millions into marketing it. How do you turn the tide? Leak the film to the internet. If critical response is bad and people don’t come to see the film during the opening weekend, you can cry foul and claim that the leak ate into your profits.

If critical response is good and people come to the theater in droves in opening weekend, you never have to talk about the leak again. Obviously the quality of the film rose above the controversy. It’s a win-win.

Steve Mason from Big Hollywood is predicting that the movie will pull in $92 million this weekend, the film is still tracking highly and the leak does not appear to have hurt Fox’s bottom line.

I suppose that’s why there have been no arrests or named suspects regarding the leak one full month after the crime was committed. Fox once vowed to prosecute to the full extent of the law an claimed the FBI and the MPAA had launched their own investigations. Maybe it’s not that big of a priority for them.

Of course, like most conspiracy theories, it doesn’t hold up very well against logic. Fox would be taking a HUGE risk by leaking the film themselves and the last thing a movie studio would want to attract is risk (especially in a down economy). Hollywood is all about what is safe and predictable. Find a formula and exploit it. Don’t rock the boat.

Still, considering how badly Fox has handled their response to the leak, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone ended up confirming the conspiracy theories. Stranger things have happened.

It’s just hard to overlook things like alternate endings shipped to different theaters as a way to draw in the audience. It feels like a gimmick. It feels desperate and tacked on. By that logic, handing out live-animals to every tenth customer doesn’t feel far off.

At this point, I would have to say my expectations for X-Men Origins: Wolverine are as low as they can possibly be. So maybe I will walk out of the theater pleasantly surprised. But what do you think? Does the conspiracy theater hold water? Has Fox bungled the marketing for this film? How do you feel about the alternate endings? Will you try to see the movie in different theaters in hopes of catching both of them, or will you wait a week for them to show up on the internet?

Leave your comments below!