More important than printing comics (which, they actually still do!), Marvel is valuable for the merchandising and movie rights to all its characters—over 5,000—many of which have become the massive film franchises that are the lifeblood of the movie studios. The only two studios that aren't dependent on Marvel for summer tentpoles are Disney and Warner Bros. (which bought out DC Comics and its stable of characters including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman). Paramount has Iron Man, Sony's long been living off Spider-Man, 20th Century Fox lives and dies by how many X-Men,Wolverine, or Fantastic Four films it can spin out and Universal would like you to like The Hulk.

All of a sudden, those studios have just discovered that Disney may be in control of their summer fates. Welcome to your new groveling life, studio executives.

Talk about an incredible item. Brief recap: Fox canned Friedman after he wrote about how easy it was to obtain a leaked, unfinished copy of Wolverine that had made its way onto the internet. Friedman went through a Kangaroo Court of sorts and got the opportunity to reason for his job with EVP John Moody and Fox News chief Roger Ailes at Fox News. It didn't go well, and he lost. The statement that was released:

Fox News representatives and Roger Friedman met today and mutually agreed to part ways immediately. Fox News appreciates Mr. Friedman's ten years of contributions to building foxnews.com and wishes him success in his future endeavors. Mr. Friedman is grateful to his colleagues for their friendship and support over the past decade.

Not so much. Friedman took his story to Rush & Molloy in the Daily News' (immortal competitor to the Fox-owned New York Post, in case you forgot). Naturally.

In it, Friedman accuses Scientology of plotting against him for a long time, as he's been a vocal critic of the organization for a while. Friedman thinks the entire Wolverine saga - a case Fox definitely took to the FBI in order to trace the original source of the film's leak - was a bullshit cover-up for his termination, or at least, the pin they needed to pull on his employment that they'd been waiting on a for a while. He cites a few instances and interactions with key celebrity Scientology members, but mainly, John Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston.

He says he saw Preston at fellow Scientology member Issac Hayes' funeral in Memphis about eight months before he was fired. They ran into each other in a hotel lobby, and as Friedman tells it, Preston had some words for him:

Mrs. John Travolta loudly blasted him for his columns criticizing Scientology. "She called me a ‘religious bigot,'  " Friedman recalls.

Sometime thereafter, as the story goes, Preston then tried to get him fired by getting Friedman's aforementioned Kangaroo Court, John Moody and Roger Ailes, on the phone. Preston called Moody a dirty word when Moody wouldn't fire Friedman for slagging on Scientology. Moody and Ailes supposedly met with Preston and Scientology's spokesman Tommy Davis to put them on ice. Friedman's overlords then told Friedman to ease up on writing about the controversial death of Jett Travolta, Preston's son. [It was recently revealed that John Travlota went against the Church of Scientology's teachings in noting Jett as having autism, a condition regarding by Scientologists as a psychological disorder, and thus, a relatively stigmatized term to them.]

Sometime after, Jim Gianopoulos, 20th Century Fox's chief, told Friedman to lay off of Tom Cruise's Hitler-hunting epic Valkyrie in the leadup to its release. Which, if it's true, sounds like some typical studio-news overlap, and probably has less to do with Scientology and more to do with Gianopoulos trying to curb the momentum of bad press his movie was getting at the time.

But then:

Last month, Variety reported that Cruise was in advanced talks to star with Cameron Diaz in a Fox action comedy, "Wichita." A source suspects that Cruise may have made Friedman's ouster a condition of the actor appearing in "Wichita. "

And, conspiracy! Someone, somewhere, suspects that some shit might've gone down! Maybe? Either way, Friedman notes that the moment his job was on the line, nobody came to his defense. "Nobody from Fox News defended me. They let the studio dictate to the newsroom," he told the News. The quote they got from Friedman's lawyer is far less conspiratorial: he's arguing the whole "piracy" aspect of things, and he's probably going to try and spend less time trying to convince a court that Friedman's being plotted against than he is working on the whole "wrongful termination" thing, though he does toss one gem to R&M: "I've seen how Scientology intimidates even the most powerful media. That seems to be what happened here."

So it goes. The final note in the column that matters is that Fox Overlord Rupert Murdoch isn't a fan of Scientology and reportedly "bristled" when they tried to recruit his kid.

Preston and Cruise's lawyers both issued outright denials. Fox refused to comment. And we might have a ball game. Let's say this thing goes whole hog: that's Preston and Cruise, being called to the stand, being asked to testify under oath as to whether or not they wanted Friedman fired and had remarked the same to anybody, at any point, ever.

But really, this just sounds like a case of Friedman being more trouble than he's worth. Fox makes exponentially more cash via Scientologists than they do their gadfly columnist talking shit on some of their highly-connected high-earners. Why keep Friedman, who's pissing off their Big Names, around? There's no reason to. So, yeah, the Wolverine thing was probably the straw that broke the gossip's job in half. To win and/or settle this thing in Friedman's favor, his lawyer's gonna have to drag whoever he can through the mud, which is probably going to be far more difficult than he thinks it's going to be.

Meanwhile, Friedman's doing a watered-down variation of his shtick at the Hollywood Reporter, incredibly. The Reporter, which has always played second fiddle to Variety for industry trade news, needs the favor of studios and agencies in order to get scoops. Why, then, would any trade paper brass in their right mind associate themselves with Friedman's gossipy items? In order to get the money Friedman's used to being paid by Fox, he has to associate himself with a big name (like The Reporter). Eventually, they're probably going to learn that Friedman's items are costing them news, and they'll cut him off from writing the "good" stuff. And Friedman's going to need something to do when that happens. Like sit on some of that lawsuit money.

Onward! To the courts!

Fox's axed man blames Scientologists [Rush & Molloy]

As Fox called in the FBI to find out who had leaked the film onto the Internet, Friedman posted a column last Thursday marveling at how easy it was to find a copy of the purloined Hugh Jackman comic book film online. The column was quickly removed and over the weekend, reports emerged that he had been fired. News Corp.'s corporate P.R. even released a statement on Sunday saying that the columnist was toast.

But that was a bit premature, and Ailes gave Friedman the chance to come in and tell him and Fox News executive vice president John Moody why he shouldn't be fired. That meeting was supposed to take place this morning, but got pushed back to the afternoon.

Why go through all the bother? Our guess is that, as ridiculous as it might sound, corporate politics were to blame. Power at News Corp. is in flux now that Ruper Murdoch's deputy Peter Chernin has announced his exit. And some of the big winners in the corporate restructurings so far have been the heads of the Fox movie studio, Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopoulos. No matter how inevitable Friedman's exit may have been, it wouldn't be surprising if Ailes bristled at the idea of movie studio people making hiring-and-firing decisions in his cable news outfit.

So, Friedman got his day in kangaroo court. And lost. Here's the official statement from Fox News:

Fox News representatives and Roger Friedman met today and mutually agreed to part ways immediately. Fox News appreciates Mr. Friedman's ten years of contributions to building foxnews.com and wishes him success in his future endeavors. Mr. Friedman is grateful to his colleagues for their friendship and support over the past decade.

Update: Friedman asks that we clarify one thing: He did not not download Wolverine per se. He explains:

I did not download anything. I found Wolverine on the internet by accident on Wednesday night. I was looking for something else—info on another movie, which had a link to this site. I simply pressed "play" and when I realized it really was Wolverine, I skipped watching Lost and watched this instead. Afterwards I discovered that the Times had written about it earlier that evening. I guess what I did was called streaming. But there was no downloading. I am fervently anti-piracy, have written extensively about this, and spent too much money at amazon's mp3 site. Please let's clear up this misconception.

Okay then.

Friedman is set to meet tomorrow with Fox News chief Roger Ailes and John Moody, the news network's executive vice president for editorial, the source said. Friedman will have a chance to plead his case, but the meeting could well end with the columnist losing his job.

Friedman is in hot water for posting to FoxNews.com Thursday a review of the forthcoming movie Wolverine. The freelance columnist based his comments on an unfinished version of the movie that leaked onto the internet last week. "It's so much easier than going out in the rain!" he wrote. "I was completely riveted to my desk chair in front of my computer."

You can imagine how this went over at Wolverine producer 20th Century Fox, which last week called in the FBI to find out who leaked the film. The studio complained corporate sibling Fox News, according to Nikki Finke, and parent company News Corp. publicly condemned the review and requested its removal. Fox News promptly deleted the piece.

Finke wrote that Ailes then fired Friedman, a development seemingly confirmed by a statement News Corp. supplied to the New York Times, reading, "Fox News… terminated Mr. Friedman."

But Fox News' only statement on the affair (also given to the Times) is that "This is an internal matter that we aren't prepared to discuss at this time."

And in fact Friedman has not been fired, according to the Fox News source, although he could well be terminated during tomorrow's meeting. The delay in firing Friedman (despite News Corp.'s announcement) could be read as a play by Ailes to assert the news division's independence from film studio 20th within the News Corp. empire.

The meeting also gives Fox News time to reconcile its own definition of journalistic ethics with 20th Century Fox's. The film studio says Friedman shouldn't have broken the law in the service of a story. But Fox News seems more comfortable with such mischief. Network anchor Shep Smith wasn't fired after he was arrested for running over a competing reporter with his car so he could snag parking space, even though the incident resulted in felony battery charges (later apparently dropped without explanation).

When Bill O'Reilly's former producer accused the Fox News host of sexual harassment, producing lengthy conversation transcripts O'Reilly never denied, sibling publication the New York Post slammed her in a story headlined "'Lunatic' O'Reilly Gal Went Nuts in Bar." O'Reilly settled the suit and, of course, retains his job.

And Fox is unrepentant about stalking a liberal blogger, sending a camera crew to tail her from her apartment across state lines to Virginia.

Quentin Tarantino's latest quiet little parlor piece Inglourious Basterds will likely bow at Cannes next month, as Tarantino is much-beloved by those Frenchie freedom haters. [Variety] James Franco may be out but Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, and Cillian Murphy are all signing up for Christopher Nolan's sci-fi action picture Inception. [Variety]

OMG, this is the best/weirdest news ever. Long-lost actor Edward Furlong, who married an old lady then disappeared, will appear in worst-director-ever Uwe Boll's new movie. It's called Janjaweed and is about Darfur. A hard-hitting look at journalists in Sudan, starring Eddie Furlong. Directed by Uwe Boll. Oh. Oh dear. (But secretly: Yessssss.) [Variety] If you need to scrub that info from your brain, go watch a pirated version of the new Wolverine movie online. Apparently it leaked. I don't know where it is, though. If I did, I wouldn't be writing this right now. [Variety]

Remember that book The World Without Us? It was about what would happen if humans were to disappear from the Earth. So: No people. Fox, somehow, has imagined this as a movie WITH PEOPLE! That guy who made a great forty-minute film and a shitty two-hour film with I Am Legend is set to direct. Boo. [THR] Speaking of people disappearing: Awe-inspiring Big Love actress Jeanne Tripplehorn will star in an indie feature called Morning, about mourning. Hopefully she will play a character named Electra. [THR]

Oh phew. AMC has renewed its terrific little series Breaking Bad for a third go-around. If you're not watching this show, do yourself a favor and check it out. That surprise Bryan Cranston Emmy win? Not such a surprise when you watch the thing. [THR]

Or does it? The X-Men series has always crackled with homoerotic subtext, and in its battle between Jackman's hero and Liev Schreiber's Sabretooth, Wolverine adds a titanic clash of warring, super-powerful bears not seen since the beer bust ended far too early at Faultline. Oh, and there's also Gambit, Ryan Reynolds, and what we think is a young version of Halle Berry's Storm. It looks as dark as we'd been promised, though we suppose there's always time for Fox head Tom Rothman to add a CGI Anna Paquin swinging through some vines.

• X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ Movie Trailer Debuts Online: Gambit, Sabretooth And More Logan [MTV]

“Of course we are concerned about the fans; however, any disappointment from the core fans should not be directed toward Fox. What we are doing is seeking to enforce our distribution rights to Watchmen. Legal copyright ownership should not just be swept under the rug and ignored.”

We can appreciate this to a point, of course, but really: What can one's chances be against an opponent who'll sacrifice anything — starting with grammar ("I wont make any difference to [Rupert Murdoch's] bank balance because there are plenty of uninformed sheep out there for his rabidly, right wing, keeping the populous afraid of their neighbours so they'll vote that way, brainwashing agenda, for him to fleece of their hard earned, tax paying cash") — to make his moral stand? Watchmen seems the least of your problems, guys; watch out for those lethal, legendary dangling participles on the way to your cars tonight.

• The 'Watchmen' war: Fanboys furious with Fox [EW]

There was/is a huge Wolverine set being recently used. I'm not even sure which lot it was built on, but the look or mood of the set is, according to a source who was told Hood's view of things, supposed to be on the dark, dinghy and somber side. I only know what I was told, but the basics are that Hood was away from the set for whatever reason (shooting something else, taking a day or two off), and when he returned to the big somber set he was shocked to find that it had been repainted top to bottom on Rothman's orders. The murky-scuzzy vibe was gone, and a brighter and less downish look had taken its place.

Perhaps Rothman has taken his fan letter from Steven Spielberg too much to heart, but a child-friendly Wolverine feels less "X" and more "Y?" Does this mean his bristly greeting of "Bub" will be redubbed "Buddy," or his iconic cigar will be replaced with a pixie stick? C'mon, Tom: Wolvie isn't meant for buoyant musical numbers — or don't you remember what happened last time?

• He Da Boss [Hollywood Elsewhere]

THR is reporting that Will.i.am now has set his sights on ruining Wolverine, Hugh Jackman's formerly-anticipated X-Men spin-off. In what is the most disappointing bit of casting news we've heard in some time, the Black Eyed Peas' worst member (for argument's sake, the best is that weird long-haired dude) has been cast as Wraith, a mutant whose skin is translucent and has the power to create a field of invisibility. Ah, if only life could imitate art. Then we would have to suffer the poor man's Andre 3000 no more.

• Black Eyed Peas singer joins "Wolverine" cast [Reuters]

"G.I Joe" is hardly the only potential 2009 blockbuster rushing to meet the strike deadline. Oscar winner Paul Haggis is plowing through James Bond 22. Since Oct. 1, Oscar nominee Scott Frank has been holed up with director Shawn Levy trying to pound out a shootable version of "Night at the Museum 2."

For the last two weeks, Billy Ray has been polishing up "State of Play," a political thriller starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton that has already passed through the hands of "The Kingdom's" Matthew Carnahan, "The Bourne Identity's" Tony Gilroy and "The Queen's" Peter Morgan.

Just last week, 20th Century Fox issued an announcement that the studio was laying claim to May 1, 2009, as the release date for its big-budget sci-fi spinoff "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" starring Hugh Jackman. This was just days after it issued an urgent SOS to the major agencies looking for a quick rewrite person. Another 2009 movie recently looking for polishes was "Four Christmases," the Vince Vaughn-Reese Witherspoon holiday yarn. The studios pay top "script doctors" $250,000 to $300,000 per week to polish screenplays. [...]

Indeed, there is a palpable fear around town that even if the strike is averted or short-lived there will be a replay of 2001, when, due to a threatened writers strike, the studios jammed sub-quality films into production, just so the pipelines would stay filled.

"Next year, there's going to be a plethora of bad movies — movies that were rushed because of the supposed strike," said producer Todd Black, who has two films in pre-production at Columbia: "Seven Pounds," a romantic drama starring Will Smith, and a remake of the crime thriller "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" starring Denzel Washington. Black insists that there's going to be "no rushing" on his movies. "I don't want to make bad movies. And whatever is going to happen is going to happen."

It's a disturbing situation that seems to become grow more nightmarish by the day: Not only may we have to endure a prolonged period of local sidewalks clogged with panhandling, baby-craving agents, but one where a usually escapist trip to the movies will offer no relief from the unrelenting horror surrounding us. Instead, each visit to the theater will bring only the queasy feeling arising from the knowledge that the holes in Wolverine's backstory could easily have been plugged if the studios had budgeted enough time to let the usual complement of fifteen uncredited writers work their script-doctoring magic.

• 'Wolverine' rewrite needed ASAP [LAT]
• Previously: WGA Gives Up Reality TV For Now, Studios To Explore Nonunion Staffing Options [Defamer]