UPDATED – Last week, I called out another website for running a rumor that didn’t pass what I considered the basic sniff test of whether something is true or false. They stood by their source at the time, and they were upset because of what I wrote.
I would imagine they’re going to be very happy to read this update.
The treatment I referred to in this piece is absolutely, completely false. Fan-fiction, and nothing more. The source for this was trusted to me, but I can’t blame the source for my mistake. I made a giant rookie error because I was intrigued to see what I thought were the origins of the ideas behind one of my favorite films this summer. I did exactly what I have snarled at others about in the past: I bought it because I wanted to buy it.
I accept full responsibility for running the story and for doing so without putting the treatment through the same sort of screening process that I would expect others to use before writing about something. You, the HitFix readership, deserve and should expect better of me, and after seventeen years of doing this, I should know better as well.
I apologize, and instead of trying to make the mistake disappear, I will leave this here as a reminder that I can’t operate on blind faith, even when something comes from someone I trust.
I’ll say this for the author of the treatment: he made an astute educated guess about the content of the film based on what wasn’t much in the way of officially released materials when he wrote this in December of 2011. Seeing how close he came to the basic shape of things is surprising.
But again… this was my mistake completely. If I am going to ask you to trust my reporting, I can’t make this sort of error again. I treated this different than I would treat “breaking news” simply because the film was in theaters already, but that’s no excuse. Either you do the legwork so you can publish with confidence, or you don’t publish. That simple rule should apply every single time, and I am sorry I let this happen.