Sony still aims to release The Interview on an alternative platform, says Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton. He insists Sony has not caved due to hacker demands.
In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Lynton says Sony is considering releasing The Interview in some format on the internet. Following Lynton’s interview, Sony released a statement reiterating its desire to find some way to bring the movie to the public and the studios’s belief that “anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so.”
Michael Lynton insists that once the decision was made to cancel the movie’s release, Sony immediately began looking for an alternative platform in which to release the movie.
Lynton’s remarks are in response to President Obama’s statement earlier today saying Sony’s decision not to release The Interview is a mistake and pulling the movie sets a dangerous precedent. Lynton says it is the President who is mistaken.
“We do not own movie theaters. We cannot determine whether or not a movie will be played in movie theaters. I don’t know exactly whether he [Obama] understands the sequence of events that led up to the movie not being shown in the movie theaters. Therefore I would disagree with the notion that it was a mistake.”
Sony canceled the movie’s Christmas Day release earlier this week after hackers threatened a terrorist attack similar to 9/11 if the movie is released to movie theaters. In Sony Entertainment’s statement, which the Chicago Tribune has published in full, the studio says it is a majority of movie theaters refusing to screen the film that led to the Dec. 25 release cancellation.
“The decision not to move forward with the December 25 theatrical release of The Interview was made as a result of the majority of the nation’s theater owners choosing not to screen the film. This was their decision. Let us be clear — 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. Without theaters, we could not release it in the theaters on Christmas Day. We had no choice.”
Sony hackers sent an email to Sony execs late last night calling Sony’s cancellation of The Interview’s release a wise decision. In that email, the hackers issued further demands of Sony , including removing any trace of the movie from the internet and not releasing the film in any form, including the internet. The hackers implied in the email if Sony releases the movie on any platform, the group would release more private data to the public.
Watch the entire Lynton interview Friday night on Sunday on Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square at 10 a.m. or 1 p.m. on CNN.