LOS ANGELES (AP) — An Australian visual effects company that worked on "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" said Thursday it was not responsible for leaking a full-length work print online.

The company's name — Rising Sun Pictures — appears in a caption dated March 2 a few minutes into the high-quality leaked copy of the 20th Century Fox superhero movie.

"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," Rising Sun Pictures chairman and co-founder Tony Clark said in a statement posted on the company's Web site Thursday.

The "prequel, which focuses on the beginnings of Hugh Jackman's clawed Marvel superhero Wolverine, is not scheduled for release until May 1, but the leaked version began appearing online Tuesday evening. Fox said in a statement Wednesday that it had the original file removed, but copies quickly propagated and continue to appear on several file-sharing Web sites.

According to Rising Sun Pictures' Web site, the visual effects company had been tasked with producing "a number of key effects sequences" in "Wolverine." Rising Sun Pictures is also working on the upcoming "Terminator Salvation" film and had previously created effects for "Watchmen," ''Australia," ''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "Get Smart."

Fox vowed Wednesday that the source of the "stolen, incomplete and early version" of the movie would be prosecuted and said the FBI and MPAA are investigating the leak. The studio also insisted that the version of "Wolverine" posted online had been forensically marked and "was without many effects, had missing and unedited scenes and temporary sound and music."

DERRIK J. LANG
AP Entertainment Writer

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