Friday, September 19, 2008

Iron Man Blu-ray / DVD differs from theatrical cut


An interesting story has emerged about the upcoming Iron Man Blu-ray and DVD release. It turns out that the version of the film on the home format will be ever so slightly different from the theatrical cut of the film.

While the movie was in production the website [a href="http://www.iesb.net/"]IESB[/a] obtained a photograph of the Iron Man suit in action and they published it on their website. This was nearly a whole year before the film came out. The studio Paramount went into meltdown and contacted the movie sites internet host and had the site shut down. The problem was that the photo was obtained and printed legally so Paramount had no right to do what they did. Shortly after both sides met and Paramount offered an apology and gave the website an exclusive set visit.

After this incident the direct Jon Favreau used the 'spy' photograph in the movie as a kind of easter egg. It is used at the very end of the movie as the picture on the front page of a newspaper that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is reading. Kinda cool really.

Anyway, now the IESB website is suing Paramount for unauthorised use of their photograph. So with the legal battle ahead the picture has been removed from the movie and replaced with a different image.

I think it is a petty reaction from the folks at IESB. You would think as a movie fan website they would be proud to have some of their own work show up in such a clever way in one of the biggest movies of 2009.

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