Officials at an Australian visual effects company have denied responsibility for the leak of the new X-Men prequel, which found its way onto the Internet this week -- a month before it is due to hit theaters.
Bosses at 20th Century Fox were furious when a full-length print of X-Men Origins: Wolverine began appearing illegally on Web sites on Tuesday night.
Studio executives took immediate action to remove the Hugh Jackman movie from the web, vowing to force prosecution on the culprit.
And attention subsequently turned to Aussie special effects firm Rising Sun Pictures, whose company logo appears in a caption a few minutes into the leaked copy.
But Rising Sun chairman and co-founder Tony Clark has now come forward to distance his company from the Internet mishap, insisting that although his employees did work on the picture, it is not possible for them to put the entire content online.
He says in a statement, "As we worked on individual sequences within the film, neither Rising Sun Pictures or its staff members have ever been in possession of a full-length version, so it would have been impossible for the movie to have been leaked from here."
FBI detectives are currently looking into the case.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is due for release in May.
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