SYDNEY - THE Hollywood star who plays superhero Wolverine said Wednesday he was 'heartbroken' that his new X-Men movie was leaked on the Internet a month before its official release.

Australian actor Hugh Jackman, who plays the mutant in 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine,' is also angry and determined that the bad guys who stole the film and leaked it will be brought to justice.

'It's a serious crime and there's no doubt it's very disappointing - I was heartbroken by it,' Jackman told reporters at a promotion for the movie in Sydney.

The leaked version of the 20th Century Fox Films action movie was reportedly downloaded tens of thousands of times within a day of being posted on file-sharing websites at the end of March.

'Obviously, people are seeing an unfinished film,' Jackman said. 'It's like a Ferrari without a paint job.' The 40-year-old star, named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine last year, said he was convinced the culprit would be tracked down.

'The FBI (US Federal Bureau of Investigation) are on to it and they're taking it very, very seriously,' he said. 'Rest assured that person will be found.' Jackman unveiled 20 minutes of completed footage from the film to about 600 fans and media on Sydney Harbour's Cockatoo Island at the start of a global promotion tour ahead of the film's official release at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, the film industry's response to the leak has already claimed at least one casualty - a US entertainment columnist fired for reviewing a stolen copy downloaded from the Internet.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which owns both 20th Century Fox Films and Fox News, said it had 'promptly terminated' writer Roger Friedman for the column posted on Fox News' website last week.

The 'X-Men' film, based on the eponymous comic book characters, was apparently spread with BitTorrent file-sharing technology that lets people exchange large data files between computers in a fashion called peer-to-peer. -- AFP