If I was Seth Rogen and Bill Simmons had asked me to reflect on the Sony hack, I wouldn’t have mentioned concerns about personal emails being revealed or even poor Amy Pascal getting whacked. I would have definitely mentioned the shameful corporate cowardice factor — the way Sony and theatre chains trembled before anonymous hackers and let their cheap threats dominate the situation. Until the indie chains stood up and pushed back. The candy-ass corporate guys showed what they were made of, all right, and it wasn’t true grit.
Posted on 12.16.14: “Deadline‘s Jen Yamato is reporting that Sony has more or less folded in the face of a blustery, probably full-of-shit threat from the Sony hackers who have warned of 9/11-style attacks upon theatres that play Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg‘s The Interview.
“‘Sony isn’t yet cancelling the Christmas release of The Interview,” Yamato wrote, ‘but the embattled studio has given its blessing to concerned theater owners who choose to drop the controversial comedy.’
“A Sony source has told Yamato that ‘we’re leaving it up to the discretion of the theater owners and chains, and we will support their decision.’
“Variety‘s Dave McNary is reporting that Carmike Cinemas had decided not to show The Interview in their theaters. 8:55 pm update: The Arclight Cinema chain has also bailed.
“Some chains or theatres may choose to play The Interview all the same but others, I suspect, may follow Carmike’s lead.
“I realized earlier this afternoon after speaking to a couple of publicists about the threat that fear had quickly taken hold. Would that Americans are made of sterner stuff. But even if only a fraction of U.S. theaters decide not to show The Interview, the bottom line is that a major corporation has blinked and basically surrendered by saying, in effect, ‘Okay, maybe we shouldn’t do this but we don’t feel tough enough…maybe the bad guys are tougher than we figured…so they win.’
“This decision will make a big impression, trust me, on hackers the world over. A light bulb is turning on in thousands of hacker brains right now. Is there anyone who doubts that Sony’s surrender has established a precedent that will encourage other bad guys to go to town?”
