Update!

First the Bootleg, Now Swine Flu—Wolverine's Unlucky Streak Continues

Film's Mexico City premiere canceled due to disease outbreak

By Joal Ryan Apr 28, 2009 1:55 AMTags
Hugh Jackman, Wolverine, PigletsJames Fisher/20th Century Fox, AGStock

Wolverine isn't taking any chances.

Wednesday's all-star Mexico City premiere of X-Men Origins: Wolverine has been scrapped due to the region's deadly swine-flu outbreak, 20th Century Fox confirmed today.

A studio rep said the superhero film is still due to open in Mexico on Thursday.

Now, as for whether there'll be theaters open in Mexico come Thursday… That's another matter. And another potential headache for Hugh Jackman's suddenly star-crossed mutant.

Jackman told E! News Monday that the Wolverine cast still wants to come to Mexico—their appearance has just been delayed. "Hang in there, guys," he said into the camera.

According to reports, Mexico's leading theater chains, at the request of government officials, have drawn the curtains on their screens throughout the stricken capital. (On the upside of a scary pandemic, at least one of the chains had plans to reopen its theaters tomorrow.)

"This is unprecedented. I've never heard of anything quite like this happening," Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Media By Numbers and Hollywood.com, said of Wolverine's Mexico City situation. "But in the broad scheme of things, I don't think it's going to hurt the movie."

Swine flu, which has spead to the United States, but, so far, in an apparently milder fashion, is the latest challenge for Jackman movie, which last month got looted by a pirate who uploaded an "incomplete and early version" of the movie to the Internet.

Despite the unlucky breaks, Dergarabedian said the film's tracking numbers among potential moviegoers are "pretty huge," and he was expecting it to deliver a "massive weekend."

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is set to open in the United States—and, in the process, kick off summer movie season—on Friday.

Barring an influx of locusts.

(Originally published April 27, 2009, at 3:55 p.m. PT)