Chernin: 'Wolverine' downloaded more than 4 million times

By Matthew Belloni

Outgoing News Corp president and COO Peter Chernin said something pretty surprising on an earnings call today. He mentioned the company estimates that the leaked "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" has been downloaded 4 million-plus times.

If true, that's far more than some previous estimates of 1 million or so illegal downloads of the Fox superhero pic, which appeared on the Web as an unfinished workprint more than a month before its release in theaters last weekend.

Regardless of whether you believe the leak took a chunk out of the film's estimated $160 million opening weekend worldwide gross or nudged more people to see it, that's a huge number of potential customers who sampled a major studio tentpole movie for free.

Meanwhile, the FBI continues to hunt for whoever uploaded the unfinished version of the film. A month into the government's investigation, no announcements have been made.