Sony announced Wednesday December 17th that they would not show the film The Interview after threats were made by hackers who stole great quantities of personal information on this heavyweight Hollywood studio.
The film, a parody on a fictional CIA plot to assassinate the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, will rather be released Christmas Day. “In view of the decision of a majority of cinemas not showing the film The Interview, we decided not to release it in theaters,” said Sony in a statement.
In an anonymous message released Tuesday December 16th, hackers that had been publishing tens of thousands of documents stolen from Sony for two weeks now, took another step in their virulent rhetoric against the company. The texts first announced the disclosure of personal data from the Internet messaging CEO Michael Lynton.
If it is impossible to determine exactly who is the author of the message, posted anonymously, its style and its distribution channels are similar to those commonly used by hackers to communicate and publish documents they have stolen from Sony Pictures. The disclosure of the CEO’s inbox, some details already on certain sites, proves that this text comes from the group claiming the cyber-attack in November.
Since the beginning of hacking Sony, this is the largest direct attack made against the film The Interview, directed by Seth Rogen and produced by Sony Pictures. After the distribution of these threats, the first showing scheduled for the 18th of December in New York was canceled. The Carmike Cinemas chain said it will not screen the film in the 278 movie theaters that it manages in the US – where the film is due out December 24.
Earlier this month, the hackers had already sent emails to the media asking to immediately stop airing the movie about terrorism that could end regional peace and start a war, but without naming the film in question. The text published December 16th feeds the assumption of a computer attacks against Sony have been initiated by North Korea. The Interview, a parody of the North Korean regime highly irritated Pyongyang, who had promised in June a “merciless retaliation.”
The FBI, in charge of the investigation, has not yet managed to find the hackers and those distributing the documents. On December 16th, a spokesman simply stated that the FBI was “aware of the threat” and “continued to lead the investigation into the hacking of Sony.”