When official pictures are released, they're usually released on some kind of press site, which in this case is the Sony press site. They're not being send out to a chosen few, every newspaper or journalist who has to deal with movies is (or should be) registered there and has access to them. My mailbox at the office is littered every day with a number of mails from various movie companies with press site update alerts. Possible that Empire has contacts to someone in the press department, got this one early and couldn't resist publishing it. It also happens that pictures are available, but are embargoed until a certain date and time and Empire chose to ignore the embargo. I only have access to the German Sony press site, so I don't know if something is already posted on the UK or US press site (the German site often is a day or two behind these).
Just out of interest. What are they dealing with, if they ignore embargos and whatnot or publish stuff like this? Anything at all?
Can't really say what happens, as I (or CBn) never broke these embargos. It's a question of fair game. But as the Captain said, could be a ban from future events, for example. And maybe, you won't get press releases a day early. Might depend on who you are. Not certain if there's a real way to enforce this kind of stuff. But in case you
really rained on their parade (in this way or another), you'll certainly get a multicoloured mail from some lawyer which doesn't read very nice (not so fond memories). Until now, Eon didn't work a lot with embargos. IFP does it quite often, with author or title announcements, or cover artwork.
