Logo

Deadline, LA Times

Hollywood Personalities Tweet Their Disapproval of Sony Pulling ‘The Interview.’ And the L.A. Times Editorializes About What Sony Should Do Next

Dec 18, 2014  •  Post A Comment

Here are some tweeted reactions to Sony’s pulling the plug on “The Interview” by various Hollywood personalities, plus an interesting idea tweeted by Mitt Romney. We found most of these on Deadline.com:

Rob Lowe: Wow. Everyone caved. The hackers won. An utter and complete victory for them. Wow.

Josh Gad: The precedent of letting a nation state get away w cyber terrorism is 1 that will set the tone for anyone who wishes 2 suppress our freedoms

Michael Moore: Dear Sony Hackers: now that u run Hollywood, I’d also like less romantic comedies, fewer Michael Bay movies and no more Transformers.

Damon Wayans Jr.: We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just do exactly what they say.

Piers Morgan: Cyber-terrorists win. Wow. #sony

Mitt Romney: .@SonyPictures don’t cave, fight: release @TheInterview free online globally. Ask viewers for voluntary $5 contribution to fight #Ebola.

To read more tweets from Hollywood we urge you to click on the link above to connect to the Deadline article.

The Los Angeles Times posted an editorial Wednesday afternoon, Dec. 17, 2014, that said, in part: “The hackers are engaged in terrorism, pure and simple, in an effort to stop people from seeing the movie. But even though the terrorists won this round, Sony still can — and should — make the movie widely available through other means.”

The editorial also said: “Considering the [hackers] demonstrable ability to wreak havoc digitally and the potential — however remote — that someone could get hurt, theater owners are in a very tough spot. Yet if the hackers succeed in keeping ‘The Interview’ out of theaters, it will surely not be the last time a group with an ax to grind makes such a threat. And there’s no shortage of people around the world with axes to grind.”

However, separately, the Times later noted: “Sony said late Wednesday that it has no plans to release the controversial movie in the future, either in theaters or via home video on-demand. ‘Sony Pictures has no further release plans for the film,’ a studio spokesman said.”

There was some speculation on the Internet that if Sony is to recoup its losses from “The Interview” through its insurance it must declare the film a total loss.

The Times’ editorial concluded:

“Judging from the early reviews, ‘The Interview’ probably isn’t worth the fuss. But the hackers picked this fight, threatening not just a single Hollywood studio but the millions of Americans likely to go to a movie during the holidays. And no matter what you think of the people behind ‘The Interview,’ they represent any artist whose work may offend someone in power. That’s the sort of speech we can’t afford to have squelched.”

To read more about the Sony situation, please click here.

9 Comments

  1. Exhibitors had no choice. This isn’t 1968, when theatres had only one screen. Consumer fear would have kept *all* movie-goers away. The real culprits are the stars, who insisted on real names, espite Sony’s reluctance.

  2. Apparently the insurance check is larger than anticipated box office for this lame film.

  3. SONY should make the movie available for download to anyone who wishes to… if they have to, they can set up a very safe website for them to do so… at the cost that anyone would pay to see it at a movie theater….

  4. Sony cannot afford to flush the insurance money down the toilet. They simply cannot upload the film, free or paid, and still collect a whole lot of dough. If you were a stockholder, would you want your investment to take such a hit?

  5. So the terrorists really didn’t win, the lawyers did.

  6. I almost crapped my pants when
    I heard Kim’s real name being used. I thought Seth was being his usual Imature self, but Sony now is his his little brother, with their own peashooter.

  7. “Oh the tangled web we have weaved….”

  8. “Oh the tangled web we have weaved….”

  9. surely this ‘total loss of the movie’ will be considered to have happened either by a voluntary action or as a result of terrorism (depending on contractual definitions), and would be excluded from the insurance policy?

Your Comment

Email (will not be published)