Roger Friedman Under “Fire” For Reviewing ‘Wolverine’ Bootleg

by megan ~ April 9, 2009

Beginning this past Saturday, April 5, the question of Fox 411’s Roger Friedman’s fate began to circulate following his review of the pirated film “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” According to Liz Smith, Roger has, in fact, been fired. His review of Wolverine was an especially odd (and stupid) thing to do (or maybe he was just trying to get fired?) considering that 20th Century Fox, a corporate relative, had gone to the FBI to fight back against the theft and mass piracy. There must be much more to this story that what appears.

The tale began unfolding on Saturday when Friedman’s review began circulating the internet (it is no longer on the Fox News site, but can still be found elsewhere on the web).

Here’s an excerpt from the solid story on the unfolding controversy by Tatiana Sigel at Variety:

On Saturday News Corp. released a statement saying the Hollywood gadfly had been “terminated.”

But on Sunday afternoon Friedman told Daily Variety that he had not been let go.

Fox News released its own missive when asked on Sunday afternoon if Friedman had been ousted. “This is an internal matter that we’re not prepared to discuss at this time,” a Fox News spokesperson said.

For its part, the studio weighed in Friday with its own statement, calling Friedman’s actions “reprehensible.”

Friedman came under fire for posting a review of a pirated version of 20th Century Fox’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” Both Fox News and 20th Century Fox are divisions of parent company News Corp.

In today’s Variety, Liz Smith speculates that “Roger must be training for something new, something entirely different….He just has to have an ace up his sleeve.” I would have to agree with Liz. Although Roger has been known to burn bridges in the past, it seems unlikely he would review such a controversial and highly publicized bootleg without expecting termination as an inevitable outcome. Regardless, I am curious to see where Roger pops up next.

Megan Raphael is an account executive at Mediashop Public Relations.  She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Relations and International Studies at the University of Miami.