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Comment by bobsky | Hacker News Reader

This is a horrible precedent. This was only a digital hack, that unfortunately violated many personal privacy's. But what happens when fundamentalist, a la ISIS, decide to do physical harm for any film or song that humours their twisted ideology - will the film studios stop releases then?

Another film set to premier on Dec 25 is Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper" (yea I know, a Christmas classic /s) an easy film to misunderstand and sure to rally those oppose to the US coalition in Iraq/Afghanistan, if threats start about this film from fundamentalists will the studios respond?

*cross post from the dead WSJ discussion thread "Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, Carmike Cinemas and Cineplex Entertainment have all decided against showing the film."

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This has essentially happened already. Comedy central censors South Park in a direct response to threats made against them regarding depictions of Mohammed.

The South Park episode you speak of still aired. But the depiction of Mohammed was "censored."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/201_%28South_Park%29

Incidentally this episode aired nine years earlier with no controversy over showing Mohammed. Though after 201 aired they did take down Super Best Friends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends

This South Park speech sums up the current situation pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka3nKBR2mIU

Very funny and true... and it looks like fear (of getting emails hacked) has executives in Hollywood panicking now.

"Steve Carell’s North Korea Movie ‘Pyongyang’ Canceled in Wake of Sony Hack" http://www.thewrap.com/steve-carells-north-korea-movie-pyong...

You think that's bad? India took Comedy central off the air because of that!

Seth Rogen is a bit of a coward. He picked an easy target in Kim given that North Korea is isolated and has no ability to do any real harm to him. Easy to mock somebody who can't get back at you.

Would he have dared to make a comedy mocking Mohammed the warlord turned prophet and 72 virgins in heaven? I guess he was smart enough to figure out that life under police protection would have cramped his partying.

Oh, and Seth is a total prima-donna, witness his recent tirade against Cathay Pacific because they wouldn't allow his wife's dog onto the plane due to the breed being more susceptible to death during flight.

I think there might be a difference between mocking an actual dictator causing real harm to real people and an ancient religious figure.

That "ancient religious figure" is arguably causing real harm to real people right now, too. If anything, the difference should be that mocking "ancient religious figure" should be risk-free, while mocking psychos with nuclear weapons is rather risky. How it became exactly the opposite is beyond me.

Are you kidding us? The entire world will now want to watch this film. One wonders if this isn't a hail mary pass by Sony....

With demand now through the roof to watch this film, I'd bet we'll see some innovative work by Sony to release this film that satisfies that demand in a legal way.

Or maybe not....

The early reviews are that the movie isn't awesome [1]. Even a Sony exec said it's just not that good of a movie. They probably will do a PPV release though.

[1] http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_interview_2014/

Hard to imagine it's much different than pineapple express and this is then end, both of which have similar RT critic scores at the moment. If you liked those you'll probably like this one.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/this_is_the_end/ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pineapple_express/

Not really.

It doesn't matter if the movie sucks.

With this much publicity surrounding the movie, people are going to want to find out what the bug deal is. Trust me, the first weeks of release the numbers will be through the roof. After that, I'm sure they'll fall off a cliff.

This is already a cult classic and it hasn't even been released.

It might never be released. Sony has pulled it from theatrical release and said there are no plans for video-on-demand or DVD release.

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/sony-cancels-theatrical-re...

For this film, maybe. It won't generate anywhere near as much publicity the 10th time it happens.

Likewise, the response will be muted the tenth time this plays out.

Theater chains are pretty spineless in general.

My initial thought was the opposite. There's no way this is a credible threat, but the theater chains can pretend it is and use it as a negotiating tactic against Sony for better terms.

Or they can use it as an excuse for their decision to remove an already controversial film.

Controversial with who? American audiences? I doubt it. What little controversy might exist over the film with American audiences is dwarfed by the controversy there was over even mundane family films like Harry Potter.

Sure, the North Koreans hate the film, but why do these cinema companies give half a shit? They weren't going to get North Korean ticket sales regardless of the movies content.

> Controversial with who? American audiences?

Yes, absolutely.

As a counterpoint, I'll point you to Chris Rock's opening monologue on SNL last month, wherein he makes 9/11 jokes. Famous comedian, Network TV, IN NYC... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYZLKqGhSZs It got some comments but there was no lasting controversy about it as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, jokes about terrorism can obviously attract controversy, but that monologue was fairly mild as those go. I wouldn't consider it anywhere near as provocative as The Interview.

If it was a western leader maybe, but North Korea's leaders are comedy punching bags in the US. See: Every late night show monologue ever, Team America: World Police.

I'm not sure if one (or both) of us is majorly filter bubbled, but my impression is that Team America (and pretty much everything from those guys, including South Park) is extremely controversial.

The only controversy that exists is in the head of north koreans. You need to be part of a society to enter into its controversy. Do you see any americans protesting this? Of course not, it's a silly comedy. Trying showing a nipple, though....

Yes, I have heard Americans say that it is unacceptable to make a comedy film that makes fun of a country where people are currently being oppressed, and other Americans say that it is unacceptable to joke about assassinating a current world leader (even if the leader might deserve it). Not only that, but all films from this gang tend to be rather crude and controversial even without a political angle.

I don't share the ideas, but they certainly aren't rare.

I would wager that those Americans don't know what "unacceptable" means in a culture where we have agreed to explicitly _accept_ such things as a measure of protection of free speech.

There's a crucial difference between "accept" and "tolerate" and there's an even wider difference between "the government must tolerate that speech" and "I must tolerate that speech."

I roundly reject the speech of shitty people. (I've switched tabletop game stores because I have no patience for GamerGate partisans, for example.) While I don't agree with the notion that this movie is deserving of rejection, I sympathize and anybody who feels that way is not somehow wrong by refusing to accept and patronize it.

Well that's just equivocating. You accept that they are allowed to say those things. Or you accept that other people are allowed to hear them. The speech is _able_ to be accepted, even if you don't _in particular_ accept it yourself.

Where is anyone saying they can't say it?

Because if you say something _should_ be done, you are making a moral command. There is no point in tolerating things that you think shouldn't happen; that's just conflating your preferences with your ability to enforce them.

"Unacceptable" wasn't a direct quote. I just mean that they oppose it.

You can find token examples of Americans who think that Harry Potter tricks children into being Satanists. You can find Americans who think that Schindlers List is jewish propaganda. You can find Americans who believe that Brokeback Mountain should be banned under obscenity laws.

These are fringe beliefs. As a general rule, movie studios do not shitcan movies just because a couple of dumbasses think that the movie goes too far.

Seriously, if Harry Potter was released despite the controversy it caused, there is no way in hell that "controversy" around The Interview is the reason behind this decision. You'd have to be incredibly out of touch with American society to think otherwise.

Or it was going to most likely be a commercial flop anyways http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_interview_2014/

Critics' reviews can mean jack shit, especially for stupid comedies like this one. Movie critics rarely rate crude and stupid comedies highly.

Looking at the audience section, with 27k entries, 96% wanting to see it and a 3.8/5 score pre-release, it's clear that it wouldn't have been a flop.

Exactly.

For example, the (also Seth Rogan / James Franco) film Pineapple Express: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pineapple_express/

58% rating from "Top Critics". 73% rating from audiences.

21 Jump Street has high reviews.

Yes, and? That says nothing about the general case, which is that crude humour is often hated by critics.

Yea but that original statement is also not backed by data (yet).

Movies do not get their theatrical releases cancelled for 50% critic ratings. Particularly not well-publicized stoner movies with big-name actors and fervent fans. That just isn't something that happens. Even Dude, Where's My Car? got its theatrical release.

The idea that Sony is using the DPRK as an excuse to shitcan this movie because of mediocre critic ratings is flat out absurd.

The Green Hornet, 43% on RT, box office of 100M.

Step Brothers, 55% on RT, box office of 100M.

Shrek the Third, 40%, 320M.

Anchorman got 66%, 84M at the office and a major cult following.

Hell, You Me and Dupree had an atrocious 21% and had 75M.

That's just looking at Seth Rogen's filmography. There's a million more examples of comedies with low ratings that either resulted in high box office results or a major cult following.

Those are just extended anecdotes.

Lots of movies that have bad reviews still have a pretty big following. Comedies generally have worse reviews than other movies anyways. In 2014, I hear people talk about how much they loved Step Brothers all the time. Its rated about 55% on rotten tomatoes.

People don't watch comedies to see oscar-winning performances, they watch comedies to laugh. 50% isn't that bad.

Ignoring the limited predictive value of critics, the massive publicity this movie has gotten makes it hard to believe that it would not be worth showing.

Critic reviews for movies like this mean almost nothing. Audience reviews do, but it's not out yet of course.

There's no way this is a credible threat...

The physical threat? No.

But there is a credible threat here. No theater wants to go through what Sony is going through right now. And no sensible one believes that they are going to be able to protect themselves from it.

And once the first domino (theater) falls, the pressure on remaining theaters increases tremendously.

I assure you, if this happens again with a better movie more likely to make money, it will get shown. This is a business decision.

> But what happens when fundamentalist, a la ISIS, decide to do physical harm for any film or song that humours their twisted ideology - will the film studios stop releases then?

I agree with you, they shouldn't be caving to threats. But they can't possibly believe that this is a credible threat. We don't have a whole lot of North Koreans emigrating here. TMZ has a slightly more likely theory [1]. Rather than genuine fear of attacks from North Korea, they contend that Sony simply wanted to bury the movie without looking weak.

"We're told the execs are actually viewing the latest threat as having a silver lining ... the threat of a 9/11-type attack will make so many theaters pull the flick themselves -- and Sony won't have to do it....Sony execs want the bleeding to stop"

[1] http://www.tmz.com/2014/12/17/theaters-cancelling-the-interv...

I also don't see how this could be taken as a realistic threat, but what are Sony's financial incentives to theaters pulling it? Weren't their costs in creating the movie?

According to Variety [1], the budget was $42 million, and they have "tens of millions" more into advertising and promotion. But I think they want this whole incident to go away, and they know that even without a theatrical release, they can make money on DVD/blu-ray and PPV.

[1] https://variety.com/2014/film/news/sony-weighing-premium-vod...

Sony is now saying they have no plans to release it at all, in any format. Buried.

I wonder if the hackers will release whatever draft the movie they grabbed just to spite Sony now.

This is the only reason I may suspect anyone that just normal black hats. Why wasn't this movie released with the rest of them. It wouldn't be the first time we've seen an unfinished movie released. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5AsOEk-ZJU

This is not a realistic theory. Nearly all of the costs associated with making and marketing the movie have already been spent. Even if the movie was a complete dud next week, it would still be making revenue in the theaters that would be going towards paying off these costs (and hopefully more).

It is realistic if they've had enough of the nonsense and don't want further bad stuff to happen after the release of the film.

Because capitulating is the sure-fire way to get the hackers and terrorists to stop? Fuck if we don't just congratulate them on a job well done, and help write the playbook for the next decade of cyber-terrorism.

It's clear in this case that their motive was to stop the release of the film. Sony decided to let them win this one. They are choosing their battles and this appears to be one they don't believe they can win or that is not worth winning. It's not what I would have done but it appears that it's what Sony wants, and it's their movie.

I think theaters are afraid of cyber attack and not a terrorist attack (physical)..... I guess pretty soon a cyber attack will be classified as a terrorist attack, legally speaking.

Surely protecting the rest of the world from bad hollywood trash is more "good" than "evil"?

This hack was probably organized by a shadowy cabal of film critics, driven mad by an endless flood of banal previews.

edit - I wonder if I should try and pitch that to someone.

Someone most probably already has...

"This is a horrible precedent."

There is more than one horrible precedent, in that the plot of the movie from what I've read, is the an assassination of a contemporary country leader by specific name. AFAIK that barrier of good taste has never been crossed by Hollywood before. Close, but advocating assassination of a current world leader by name?

Of course, two wrongs not making a right, and all that.

My gut level guess is the whole thing is being orchestrated for PR, lets call it the "snakes on a plane part 2" marketing plan. Hoping for the netflix revenue.

>> "advocating assassination of a current world leader by name"

It's a movie. It's make believe. There were two movies last year depicting the White House getting attacked. Were they advocating attacking the White House?

OTOH what represents the white house won in the end. Does the same thing happen in this movie?

From what I've heard, North Korea would be less than happy with the end.

There was a 2006 British mockumentary, Death of a President, which depicted the death of President George Bush (in a much tamer fashion that the explosions in The Interview). The film was criticized by both Republicans and Democrats. Two U.S. cinema chains refused to screen it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_President_(2006_film...

There has been a long evolution by international organisations to pressure global culture into "respecting" their ideology. Islam is best known for this [1][2], but Russia, China and half of Africa and South America are on the side of the "global censorship"-cabal. Depending on whether it applies to religion (e.g. islam), political ideology (e.g. socialism/communism) or people (dictatorships, or royal family or ...) it refers to "defamation of religion" laws or ...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_of_religion_and_the_...

[2] Don't feel I have to include links, they'd detract from the discussion, but we all know the massive international protests and even murders against cartoons, films, books, ... that muslims keep throwing every 5 years or so.

(yes, it's called defamation of religions, but it covers a hell of a lot more than just religions. Mostly mentioning islam here because it's the driver behind these horrible laws)

But here's the thing Americans don't seem to understand. Number of people in favor of real freedom of expression* : 60% of the US, 5% of the rest of the world.

* irrespective of the subject, which excludes most of Europe. Europe is only in favor of freedom of expression where it doesn't interfere with religion, (some) policies, a few families, ...

For that matter, Death of a President had GWB actually being assassinated. I remember it causing a stir, but it did see release in the US.

I suspect few would be as cool with this reasoning if a comedy came out of Asia featuring a climax where Obama is lynched.

Those among us with a bit of perspective would be. Do you imagine that the leader of our nation would call for the movie to be banned? Don't think so.

Hilary Mantel's short story about the (ahistorical) assassination of Margaret Thatcher was almost banned in the UK.

A contemporary story about the assassination of David Cameron would be unlikely to make it to the BBC.

A contemporary movie about same would never be funded.

So you have one instance of something _almost_ being banned in the UK (is that even true?), followed by two hypothetical situations.

Aside from being a rather flimsy argument in general, what does any of that have to do with the US? The parent referenced President Obama.

Hilary Mantel's short story was certainly controversial amongst the expected critics, but it was not "almost banned", or even considered for such a ban by anyone who could effect it.

The BBC is going to (or already did?) air the story on Radio 4's "Book at Bedtime" which is the furthest thing from being banned that I can think of.

Mind you they've received a share of vitriol for doing so.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/14/hilary-mantel-a...

I don't think the president would call for it to be banned, but I would expect protests, cries of racism, and possibly violence at theaters to follow even here in America.

Idoubt the latter, but sure, there would be a group of vocal detractors. That's the greatness of living in a free country; people are free to have their own opinions, but we still get to watch the movie of we like (or, at least, we used to be able to...).

My point was that of the group of 'vocal detractors', most of them are going to be the same people who are currently saying "Hey relax, it's just a movie, a comedy".

> AFAIK that barrier of good taste has never been crossed by Hollywood before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_President_%282006_fi...

I'm sure there are earlier precedents too, but this one comes to mind immediately.

Oh, another one: Team America: World Police... which actually did depict a mission to go kill Kim Jong Il (while he was still ruling North Korea). Though to be fair they didn't actually manage to kill him, since in that movie he turned into a cockroach and fled in a spaceship.

Thanks for the link, I never heard of that movie. Interesting.

Wikipedia says it pretty well : "was much criticised by those who believed it exploited the subject of presidential assassination, and that by doing so, was in bad taste"

There's a quote by Hillary Clinton, like it or not, likely to be our next president, describing that movie as "despicable". I never thought I'd agree with her on absolutely anything, but here I am.

(and again I state two wrongs don't make a right, etc)

If you haven't seen the movie (which she probably didn't either), then what's your basis for calling it "despicable"?

FWIW, I did see it at the time, and thought it was a fairly intelligent and sensitive depiction of what might happen to American society if Bush were murdered. In any case, why should such a "what if" scenario be off-limits to artists?

>There's a quote by Hillary Clinton, like it or not, likely to be our next president, describing that movie as "despicable".

And she's a despicable person. Sadly, she's probably going to be the best candidate in the next election, but she's a horrible person whose opinion counts for nothing.

Death of the Jackal! I think Hitchcock's 39 steps can count too, even if its not about a major figure. They're both great though. Political assassination has been a fiction trope since early literature, no?

You meant The Day of the Jackal, the thriller about the assassination of de Gaulle, right?

Yes, my bad. Thanks for catching that! I wish I could go back and edit.

Edit: It's actually "Day of the Jackal". Sorry HN!

Except death of a president and Day of Jackal are not saying haha we are going to kill the leader of a country.

Charles de Gaulle was president of France. I don't think tone matters here. I think we'd still be here if it was a Michael bay snoozer.

It's a comedy. It's satire. Also, none of us have seen it yet, so it's impossible to say it advocates anything until we've seen it.

Can anyone argue that it would not be a good thing if Kim Jong Un were assassinated? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_North_Korea

The horrors of North Korea wouldn't suddenly stop just because the guy at the top got killed.

Not suddenly, but maybe after the 4th or 5th replacement got assassinated in short order. Keep killing them as long as they remain hostage takers who don't surrender.

There are easier and better ways to start a war with North Korea.

There is no silver bullet, but that situation cannot get much worse than it already is. Even if the country collapsed into anarchy, the chaos would at least provide the opportunity for some to escape.

Organized evil is more harmful than any sort of chaos. The only exceptions involve WMD deadman switches.

I doubt it would collapse or even undergo anything much of note. I imagine if Kim Jong Un was assassinated, he would "retire" and be replaced with someone else. The government is much more than just the one guy.

North Korea's previous leader, Kim Jong-Il, was killed in 'Team America: World Police'. Impaled, actually.

So not only has this precedent been set, but it was done to the same country's leader by producers and directors in the United States.

Edit: This was done a decade ago.

The vomit scene was awesome. I saw it with my grown up daughter. She laughed so hard she couldn't stop. Then people around her started to go out of control laughter, too. Then she bolted. Apparently she was laughing so hard at the idea of a scene where a puppet vomits unceasingly that it triggered her gag reflex!

Freeing little kids from prisons isn't in good taste?

>AFAIK that barrier of good taste has never been crossed by Hollywood before. Close, but advocating assassination of a current world leader by name?

How many people does a dictator have to send to a concentration camp before they lose the right to complain about such a movie being in bad taste? Personally, I think the answer is 1.

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