President Barack Obama declared that Sony “made a mistake” in shelving a satirical film about a plot to assassinate North Korea’s leader, and he pledged the U.S. would respond “in a place and manner and time that we choose” to the hacking attack on Sony that led to the withdrawal. The FBI blamed the hack on the communist government.
Speaking of executives at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Obama said Friday at a year-end news conference, “I wish they had spoken to me first. We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship.
Obama said he imagined situations in which dictators “start seeing a documentary that they don’t like or news reports that they don’t like. Sony said it had had no choice but to cancel distribution of the movie since theaters were refusing to show it. North Korea denied anew that it had hacked the studio.
It happened after the disclosure of confidential Sony emails and business files and threats of terror attacks against U.S. movie theaters until Sony agreed to cancel the Christmas Day release of its comedy, “The Interview.”
Obama spoke not long after the FBI provided the most detailed accounting to date of the digital break-in. The president’s pointed criticism of Sony shifted focus to whether the studio would modify its decision, as some leading celebrities? Including actors George Clooney and Sean Penn ?
But the Homeland Security Department concluded those threats were not credible, and the top multiplex chains in North America dropped “The Interview” only after Sony informed them it would not protest if the theaters pulled the film. Representatives for Regal, AMC, and Carmike did not immediately respond to request for comment Friday.
Lynton did not indicate whether Sony planned to release the movie on DVD or through video-on-demand services, which are not controlled by theaters, but the company suggested that was an option in a statement late Friday.
“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,” the company said. “After that decision, we immediately began actively surveying alternatives to enable us to release the movie on a different platform.”
Bureau Report
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