Some current news’ reports allege that North Korea is responsible for the Sony hack that has intimidated Sony into canceling its Christmas Day release of “The Interview.” That may or may not be true. Time will tell.
Still, it is chilling that anyone can intimidate a company (especially one with the clout of Sony) into canceling “a major motion picture” opening.
“The Interview” may turn out to be a bad movie, or a really good Seth Rogan movie, which may not be a big difference, but let us decide that.
The reactions have not been good PR for Sony. Some of my favorites on Twitter:
“Church Curmudgeon” tweeted “Our boycotts never kept a movie out of a theater. Maybe the Southern Baptists need nukes.”
And Scout (@nycscout) Tweeted: “Apparently, Hitler could have just phoned in an anonymous bomb threat to prevent The Great Dictator from being shown. Unbelievable.”
Yeah, a big FAIL for Sony.
This is a movie I would never have seen, but now maybe I will!
When I Survey . . . 
I’m not sure I agree with your Fail assessment. Sony had no good options. Not only were the hackers threatening the release of more of Sony’s “secrets” (and Sony would know what that might entail), but they were threatening actual violence at the theaters. There was no way to stop the continued leaks, and no way to know what kind of physical attack might happen (if not in the US, somewhere in the world). Now, of course, the danger is that hackers could veto the next movie somebody doesn’t like, and Sony knew that was the risk in canceling. So they had a real dilemma, and made the choice of the lesser of two evils.
You can bet that every studio in the world is tightening up security on their systems, which is mainly how a repeat of this can be avoided. And maybe some of the white(r) hat hackers like Anonymous will go after these Guardians of Peace.
Thanks, Martin. You make some good points, and it was probably a good business decision with the liability issues. But the dampening of free expression at home by a small despotic regime like NK is chilling. Can someone with a suitcase bomb blackmail a publisher or studio into vetoing a project? Echoes of the Rusdie affair, and also of the woman whose book on Putin was denied by her publisher (Cambridge University Press) not because they questioned her reporting, but were afraid of lawsuits. Some of the issues here are like the question of whether one negotiates with terrorists. The movie will probably stink anyway, and if and when it is released (to streaming) everybody will want to see it because of all the free press.
I think due to vulgar and disrespectful dialogue, story theme, creating International headache for our State Department, and setting a bad example as a movie for the Christmas season, Sony needs to have some pushback by Christians. Forget about the Constitution and remember what the Bible says about mocking people and vulgar talk. As Christian we need to set a standard as to what Christians represent. Also, I very disappointed in the Christian response, I don’t hear any pushback to Sony. This movie was a bad, bad idea from the get go and then to add insult releasing it on Christmas Day. Remember we as Christians were celebrating the birth of Christ, the prince of peace. Have we forgotten what Christmas is all about. I am very disappointed in Christians not raising these concerns. Christians are you comatose.