President Obama has announced that he believes Sony Pictures made a mistake pulling The Interview from theaters, and confirms North Korea was responsible for the cyber attack.
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Update (5:00 p.m. eastern): In yet another turn of events, Sony has issued a new statement in which they deny that canceling the film’s theatrical release was their fault and say that they’re actively pursuing new release methods for the film.
“Let us be clear — the only decision that we have made with respect to release of the film was not to release it on Christmas Day in theaters, after the theater owners declined to show it,” their statement reads. “Without theaters, we could not release it in theaters on Christmas Day. We had no choice.”
They continued, “After that decision, we immediately began actively surveying alternatives to enable us to release the movie on a different platform. It is still our hope that anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so.”
Sony said earlier this week that they had “no further plans” for the film, so if they didn’t want people blaming them for its cancellation, they shouldn’t have made the earlier statement.
Surely this new statement from Sony will prompt a new response from North Korea, who just earlier today warned the studio that they must never release the film in any form.
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Update (4:10 p.m. eastern): In an interview with CNN after Obama’s remarks, Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton pushed back the blame. “The President, the press, and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened,” Lynton said. “We do not own movie theaters. We cannot determine whether or not a movie will be played in movie theaters.”
When asked if he would do this all again, Lynton said, “Yeah, I would make the movie again… We would still like the public to see this movie. Absolutely.”
Some theaters said earlier this week that they decided to pull The Interview due to Sony’s “wavering” support for the film, so this has turned into a he-said, she-said situation.
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During a press conference addressing the cyber attack against Sony and their decision to pull The Interview, President Obama said, “Yes I think they made a mistake.” He went on to say that he wonders what would happen to other movies that shed light on foreign regimes if those governments didn’t like that the content was being viewed.
President Obama said, “We can not have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship in the United States.” He agreed with the majority of others who have spoken out against the film being pulled, saying that it does set a bad precedent for future attacks to take place.
He continued, saying, “We cannot start changing our patterns of behavior any more than we stop going to a football game because there’s a possibility of a terrorist attack, any more than Boston didn’t run its marathon this year because of the possibility that someone might cause harm. Let’s not get into that way of doing business.”
The President seemed to feel strongly about the fact that we cannot let anyone, hackers in this case, scare us into changing our behavior in any way due to fear mongering. It can only breed more potential attacks and threats in the future, which could cause a similar response.
When asked whether he will watch The Interview, he said, “[I have a] long list of movies I am going to be watching.” Obviously it’s uncertain whether Sony will release the film for anyone to see in the future, as they’ve also decided to file an insurance claim on the film in hopes to recoup some of the reported $75 million that it cost to make the film.
He confirmed what the FBI said earlier today, that the cyber attack has been linked to North Korea via “other malware that the FBI knows North Korean actors previously developed.”
President Obama later said that the U.S. will respond “proportionately” and at a “place and time of our choosing.” He also went on to say, “I think it says something interesting 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.”
He also noted that companies should be making a concerted effort to improve their cybersecurity in an attempt to prevent these types of attacks in the future, as it’s “not just a movie studio but the economy” that is affected.
President Obama is taking a clear stance against Sony’s decision to give in to threats from a malicious cyber attack, and more importantly explaining to the public that this is a much larger issue than a satirical comedy being pulled from theaters.
The future ramifications of these decisions are not yet known, but the general consensus is that the film industry has taken an incredibly misguided step into unknown territory.
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