Amid intense pressures and threats from Sony Pictures hacker group, “Guardians of Peace”, the U.S. based production house has decided to call off The Interview’s December 25th debut. This decisions comes following denial by various movie chains to screen the film in their respective theatres.
WSJ reports that Sony Pictures took this 11th hour decision after exhausting through all the alternatives it had for film’s release. The company had earlier though of releasing the film on a video-on-demand basis on television, but plans couldn’t materialise.
ComCast Corp., which is the largest cable operator in the U.S. denied to release the film on its video-on-demand channel considering the security threats and sensitivity of this film. A Sony Pictures spokesman on Wednesday said that the company has “no further release plans for the film”
Meanwhile, U.S. Officials have concluded that North Korea is behind, what is already, the biggest ever cyber attack on a company on U.S. soil. As per WSJ, this attack has now elevated to an issue of national security, rather than the corporate identity which we previously assumed.
Earlier, hackers had released extremely sensitive and confidential emails exchanged between Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel and Sony Pictures Chief. Evan then described the incident as something which has “violated and exposed his company’s work”.
The entire incident snowballed into a major national security issue when hackers threatened a repeat of the 9/11 attacks on theatres or channels whol release the controversial, North Korea based movie. U.S. officials, including the FBI have since then blamed the attack on North Korea, and are investigating further to find out the backing behind this attack.
