Sony cancels the release of The Interview

Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Politics aside, I think it's tasteless to make a film about killing a current sitting leader, especially when it humiliates that person on the world stage.
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Agree with this.

A UK author wrote a work of fiction about the assassination of (former British PM, now deceased) Margaret Thatcher - it upset a lot of people, as will the BBC radio broadcast based on the work
If a nation hostile to the US produced a big budget film about the assassination of Barack Obama there would be absolute uproar
I don't condone censorship but its no surprise at all that a film about the assassination of a serving leader has upset a lot of people and been cancelled
 
TubEfingers said:
I don't condone censorship but its no surprise at all that a film about the assassination of a serving leader has upset a lot of people and been cancelled
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So, "The Naked Gun"(1988) with:
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The film begins in Beirut where a gang of anti-American leaders including Ayatollah Khomeini, Mikhail Gorbachev, Yasser Arafat, Muammar Gaddafi, Fidel Castro, and Idi Amin, as well as a man named Pahpshmir, meet to plan the ultimate terrorist act against the United States. Police Squad Lieutenant Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) has been posing undercover as a waiter and beats up all the attendees, discovering in the process that Gorbachev's famous birthmark is a fake and various other shocking facts about them. As Frank leaves the gathering, he identifies himself to the crowd and warns them, "don't let me catch you guys in America!"
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Should have been pulled, lest we be put into a 1980's version of The Cuban Missile Crisis?

Then there's the "Hot Shots!"(1991) which depicts a military action in Iraq, and then "Hot Shots! Part Deux"(1993)... which also target Saddam Hussein for parody purposes...
 
You know what I am guessing part of the issue here is less a national stance on policy, security, etc. Remember we are dealing with a private corporation, and with all of the information leak, I would wager that threats moved beyond "major theatre attacks".

I'm going to assume here that CEOs and their families... producers, directors, cast members, etc. have been threatened with repercussion if things were to move forward, be it physical attack or private data leaks or who knows. We know they have all of their person data and, when we are not talking about a national policy to negotiate with terrorist, but personal human beings from a private company being threatened..

BTW I am not disagreeing with the problems associated with bowing to terrorits demands, the message it sends, etc. But this is not " 'MERICA" being a coward. These are lay people probably not wanting to risk their friends, families, or selves to make the profit from the moving. Or to avoid blackmail/extortion of (potentially damaging?) private data. Who knows?
 
^ Word (and proof The Three Stooges were irreplaceable...)

"If somebody is able to intimidate folks from releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don't like."

"I think it says something about North Korea that they decided to have the state mount an all out assault on a movie studio because of a satirical movie, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco. I love Seth, and I love James, but the notion that that was a threat to them? I think gives you some sense of the kind of regime we're talking about here"

 - President Obama
 
filmguy123 said:
I'm going to assume here that CEOs and their families... producers, directors, cast members, etc. have been threatened with repercussion if things were to move forward, be it physical attack or private data leaks or who knows. We know they have all of their person data and, when we are not talking about a national policy to negotiate with terrorist, but personal human beings from a private company being threatened..

BTW I am not disagreeing with the problems associated with bowing to terrorits demands, the message it sends, etc. But this is not " 'MERICA" being a coward. These are lay people probably not wanting to risk their friends, families, or selves to make the profit from the moving. Or to avoid blackmail/extortion of (potentially damaging?) private data. Who knows?
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Definitely. Threatening to bomb theatres showing the movie was probably an empty threat. What's not empty is the 40 terabytes of company data they now have hostage. They have Sony bent over a barrel on this one.
 
This is definitely a movie I WANT to see PIRATED and torrented for maximum distribution. Whoever may work at SONY distribution or any of the coloring and post houses handly the post for this movie (and there's a lot of them). Please copy the quicktime onto a USB stick, screw the MPAA regulations because they don't morally apply in this case, and get it on torrents for the holiday season!
 
Doctor Wu said:
This is definitely a movie I WANT to see PIRATED and torrented for maximum distribution. Whoever may work at SONY distribution or any of the coloring and post houses handly the post for this movie (and there's a lot of them). Please copy the quicktime onto a USB stick, screw the MPAA regulations because they don't morally apply in this case, and get it on torrents for the holiday season!
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That would be an interesting 'disavowal' by Sony... put the film out to the Public Domain from get go...
 
pkw11 said:
What's to fear from the North Koreans, it's not like they have the resources to commit REAL terrorism. You know, they don't even have box cutters in North Korea.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-legacy-of-terrorism-goes-far-beyond-hacking/

On the other hand, the Sony headquarters in Culver City is right across the street from the Culver City Police Department who, I'm sure, would thwart any attempt by terrorists to blow-up or shoot up said building.

I've driven by that building thousands of times over the years. You could blow the thing to the moon using a U-Haul rental truck. Everyday there are hundreds of rental trucks rolling down Culver and Washington Blvds. because there are lots of apartments all around and lots of people are always moving.

You might as well assume that North Korean bad guys are already here--these people are pros and have enormous resources. They have all of the addresses of Sony personnel. Think Nicole Simpson--how easy would it be for a team of professionals to kill anyone on the Sony personnel roster? Piece of cake.

This could actually be a great plot for a movie. But I'm sure it's all just smoke and mirrors. After all, it's not as if Kim Jong-un is insane or a monster, he just executes people by staking them to a mortar aiming stick. Then they open fire with mortars!

Yes, Sony should go ahead and release this film. Or someone should pirate it and plaster the internet with it. Them North Koreans are just full of empty threats.
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anyone could do anything at any time. but that doesn't mean i have to live in constant fear and never go to see a movie again because of what some crazy person might do.
 
pkw11 said:
What's to fear from the North Koreans, it's not like they have the resources to commit REAL terrorism.
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Probably true, but as I said, Sony has a lot to fear as the hackers, whom the FBI confirmed as being North Korea, have reams of their personal corporate data. This film will never see the light of day unless it's leaked by someone other than Sony.
 
pkw11 said:
It's not "anyone" or "anything", they are targeting Sony Pictures. So while I doubt that the North Koreans are going to attack 500 movie theaters, it would seem reasonable that they could take out one or two Sony executives and their families.

In fact, if you think about it, if you were Kim Jong-un it would be much more effective to kill one Sony executive than to kill 400 ordinary American citizen theater goers. Now no one understands what's going on in Kim Jong-un's head or the people in power there, but a terror state exists because they can exert terror. You can terrorize an American industry by just killing a few people.

The North Koreans have blown an airliner out of the sky, kidnapped people, blew a South Korean Navy ship out of the water, and committed several other terror attacks with great precision. They need some more leverage and it would be a mistake to think that they are just a lot of hot air, imho.
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they could do that any time they want, regardless of whether or not a movie is released. so what is the point of not releasing the movie?
 
ugafan said:
they could do that any time they want, regardless of whether or not a movie is released. so what is the point of not releasing the movie?
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If you and your family were personally threatened by an entire anti-american country for releasing a movie that would do little to change your quality of living/overall financial status, and you would still release the movie merely out of conviction and principle, you my good sir have more balls than I do.

Me? I'd be like, yeah, definitely not worth it.

I get where people are coming from, but the people who really stand to lose here have a lot more at stake personally than anyone doing the criticizing.

If it was just a matter of national policy, it would be different.. but it's not.
 
filmguy123 said:
If you and your family were personally threatened by an entire anti-american country for releasing a movie that would do little to change your quality of living/overall financial status, and you would still release the movie merely out of conviction and principle, you my good sir have more balls than I do.

Me? I'd be like, yeah, definitely not worth it.

I get where people are coming from, but the people who really stand to lose here have a lot more at stake personally than anyone doing the criticizing.

If it was just a matter of national policy, it would be different.. but it's not.
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+1. Sony is a private corporation. They aren't the US Government and don't represent America. They represent their shareholders and employees and that's it.
 
filmguy123 said:
If you and your family were personally threatened by an entire anti-american country for releasing a movie that would do little to change your quality of living/overall financial status, and you would still release the movie merely out of conviction and principle, you my good sir have more balls than I do.

Me? I'd be like, yeah, definitely not worth it.

I get where people are coming from, but the people who really stand to lose here have a lot more at stake personally than anyone doing the criticizing.

If it was just a matter of national policy, it would be different.. but it's not.
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not only would i release the movie, i would hold a press conference and wear a kim jong-un t-shirt with an inscription that reads, "come at me bro".
 
Sony Pictures Entertainment is an American subsidiary of Sony.

SPE CEO Michael Lynton (an American) says it was all a theater chain decision, not Sony's:

“We do not own movie theaters. We cannot determine whether or not a movie will be played in movie theaters.”

Lynton added Sony still wants to find a way to distribute the film, but couldn’t find an online service that would be willing out of concerns it may also be attacked.

“There has not been one major VOD distributor, one major e-commerce site step forward and say they would distribute this to us,” he said, adding, “we don’t have that direct interface with the American public so we need to go through an intermediary to do that.”

Sony does own its own streaming service called Crackle, which it acquired in 2006. It is also able to distribute the film on its PlayStation Store, which sells and rents movies through its game consoles and devices. It wasn’t clear from the CNN interview if Sony is considering using its own distribution platform.

Crackle referred inquiries to Sony Pictures, which has yet to respond to a question regarding the service. A PlayStation spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment.

Industry observers said that Netflix and YouTube would be possible candidates to help Sony release “The Interview” online.
“We are approached on virtually every unconventional release by the networks and studios and, as a matter of course, don’t discuss publicly the pitches, concepts or ideas that come our way,” Netflix rep Jonathan Friedland said in an e-mailed statement.
YouTube reps have not responded to multiple requests for comment.
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http://recode.net/2014/12/19/president-obama-slams-sony-hack-response/

Of course the earlier torrent suggestion could work, and would decentralize the source.
 
Knuckling under with fear to a tin pot banana republic country with the Gross National Product of a Detroit suburb. A country South Korea should have invaded a long time ago if they weren't such p*ssies preoccupied with making more money. Personal threats or real attacks - any real violence on US soil has a huge deterrent - our armed forces. It would never happen and if it did, they would be dealt with.
 
pkw11 said:
the issue of "freedom of expression" is the least important matter, I think.
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yeah, why would a community of filmmakers care about "freedom of expression" when they have the boogey man hiding under their beds to worry about.
 
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