p2pnet.net News:- Hollywood’s decision to use the insider-leaked ‘Sith’ Star Wars flic to highlight its attack on BitTorrent is having unexpected consequences.

The world premier of Stephen Spielberg’s remake of the H.G. Wells sci-fi movie, War of the Worlds, was being staged at the Budokan, Japan.

But it’s been cancelled because the, “gala event is too difficult to protect from piracy, distributor UIP announced Friday,” says the Mainichi Daily News.

“More than 7,000 tickets to the premiere had been sold,” it continues, but, “Putting fear into the distributors was the aftermath of the May U.S. opening of ‘Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,’ which resulted in illegal copies of the movie being made from theater screenings that were posted on the Internet within hours of the film first being showed.”

Actually, it wasn’t “theater screenings” that were the initial problem.

Although someone from the Hollywood movie industry posted a work print online, possibly at the behest of one or more of the the MPAA’s (Motion Picture Association of America) owners, MPAA boss Dan Glickman used the appearance to launch into another steaming rant against p2p file sharing in general, and BitTorrent in particular.

Predictably, and as intended, his diatribe was immediately picked up and headlined by the world press corpse.

“Recently, guards have searched people and checked their bags before they go in to see preview screenings of blockbusters, but UIP decided that it was not possible to carry out such checks at the Budokan,” says Mainichi.

“The screening was cancelled for security reasons.”

“At recent premieres in Japan, audiences have been searched at the theater entrance for video cameras, while security guards have monitored the audience with starscopes during screenings, but a UIP spokesman said such measures would be logistically difficult at the Budokan,” says Japan Today.

But, it adds, Tom Cruise, who’s starring in the movie, and Spielberg will still travel to Japan later this month to appear at a special media screening at Roppongi Hills on June 13.

“Worldwide simultaneous release has come to mean everywhere except Japan,” complained a post to the Japan Today story.

“Some fanatics flew to China or Korea to see ‘Sith’. I could have gone and watched it in Trinidad or Iceland, if I so desired. Communist government officials took in the film. People taking breaks from hacking off legs and arms with machetes took in the film. Bobby Fischer,the angry and bitter man himself, took in the film. Ex-Japanese imperial army soldiers hiding in the mountains in the Philippines took in the film. At least the sushi is fresh. Oh…and there are four seasons.”

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See:-
Mainichi Daily News – Piracy fears spark cancellation of ‘War of the Worlds’ Budokan premiere, June 4, 2005
Japan Today – June 13 screening of ‘War of the Worlds’ canceled over piracy fears, June 4, 2005

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