'Wolverine' movie leaked online

NEW YORK, April 2 (UPI) -- An investigation is under way into how the unfinished movie "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" was leaked online, the movie's distributor says.

The FBI and the Motion Picture Association of America are investigating the leak, which led to thousands of people seeing a version of the Hugh Jackman flick on the Internet Tuesday, a month before it is to hit theaters, The New York Times reported.

The Times quoted 20th Century Fox, the movie's distributor, as saying it doesn't know how the leak occurred. The version that appeared online didn't have its final special effects, sound or music, the newspaper said.

Eric Garland, the chief executive of the file-sharing monitoring company BigChampagne, described this week's mass downloading of a working copy of "Wolverine" as a "one-of-a-kind case."

"We've never seen a high-profile film -- a film of this budget, a tent-pole movie with this box office potential -- leak in any form this early," Garland told the Times.

"The source of the initial leak and any subsequent postings will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Fox said, adding "the courts have handed down significant criminal sentences for such acts in the past."