New York Premiere of Sony Film, The Interview, cancelled

The New York premiere of The Interview, a comedy about the assassination of North Korea's president, has been cancelled amid threats from hackers.

A spokesman for the cinema chain due to host the screening said it had been shelved.

Hackers targeting Sony Pictures had threatened to attack US cinemas showing the studio's film.

They belong to the same group which has released emails and data stolen from Sony.

Calling themselves Guardians of Peace, the hackers mentioned the 9/11 attacks in a recent warning, claiming "the world will be full of fear".

"Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time," the hacker group wrote in a message on Tuesday.

New York Premiere of Sony Film, The Interview, cancelled

I saw the ATS thread here about the threats, but it seems at least one Cinema has taken them seriously enough to cancel the screening.

While I understand the desire to avoid any unnecessary loss of life, this is also tantamount to giving in to terrorist threats - the best way to defeat terrorists is to act like they aren't even there.

And before anyone jumps on me for labelling them terrorists, it is a utilising a threat of violence to effect a political, legal or societal change, so fit's the definition.

New York Premiere of Sony Film, The Interview, cancelled

And with that the terrorist have won.

A film about killing a sitting leader of a country - who would have thought there would be blowback? This is an all-around sad situation, and SONY must be full of meetings of people balancing freedom of speech with the challenge of the sites that their movie will be playing coming under physical attack. Bad options everywhere you look.

It's all just like the script of a crappy Hollywood movie!

Somewhere in the bowels of a NSA bunker in Utah, there is a bunch of geeks wetting themselves over the chaos they are creating as a means to usher in new laws to curb the internet and file sharing.

Sorry, what am I thinking.... it's North Korea behind it, I mean, it's obvious, what with the film content and all.

I see it more as a wise business decision on the part of the theater owners. Sony pictures is going to be bankrupt by next year with all of the current lawsuits (and possibly future ones) already filed against them. Sony is broke. According to the leaked emails, their movies for the foreseeable future are turds. Christmas is a big box office day. Why not remove the turd from the popcorn bucket so people will patron your movie multiplex? If you don't, quite a few people won't come out with their families due to a threat. I don't blame them. Theaters make such a small profit that they need to be open and have asses in seats.

When it comes to grazing your cattle on federal property that they want to convert to other uses, they have the heat all over your ranch, but when a terrorist group threatens a movie theater they won't lift a finger?

I think it is in the government's interest to have terrorist threats, because they are the biggest terrorists on the block. You must fear the government as much or more than you fear some threat from some outside group. You can count on the government going after it's own citizens as they are the easy soft target of choice for the terrorists that they really are. These other guys making threats, they will wait until the deed is done then send in the cover-up crews to spin the situation to their advantage.

Just a few minutes ago I posted my feelings on this in the existing Sony hack thread:

So now with the threats of violence apparently movie theaters are cancelling the opening of the movie and Sony is considering pulling the movie altogether. I think what they SHOULD do is release a statement saying that, 'Due to the threats of violence on movie theaters and movie goers from the GOP hacker group, Sony will not be releasing the movie to the theaters... instead, we will be releasing the movie for free, online to anyone who wants it and distributing DVD copies.'

a reply to: stumason

Here was a suggested response, by a very clever ATS Member.

sony should resurrect the piratebay and put the movie there for everyone to see it

~Tenth

give them them middle finger salute and run the film.

As former PA governor Ed Rendell once famously stated 'We've become a nation of wusses'.
www.washingtonpost.com...

originally posted by: hounddoghowlie
give them them middle finger salute and run the film.

I'd watch it if it were online, but the hosting sites might then become the target. Some good came of all this - the private data and emails which show how a major Hollywood studio works and thinks (worth a movie in itself, maybe they can release the original film within a documentary about the film and the hacking). Maybe Seth Rogan should take Dennis Rodman's hand and go to North Korea to meet with the dear (deer?) leader, to discuss the film and the concept of free speech.

I find it cute how submissive america has become.
It's pretty obvious nothing major would have happened...what's the worst case? they hack the movie theater and show porn instead?
America has become weak, pathetic, blame it on 9/11 or the feminization of america, whatever, you guys need to get your act together.
Make fun of the French if it makes your ego smile, but they would not have put up with this crap

a reply to: stumason

With the multiple powers of unlimited money and the most advanced technology we can only guess about in the hands of our governments, I find it uncomfortable that--evidently--there are no visible powers on earth that can put an end to cyber terrorism--so it would seem.

Something is wrong with this picture that we are supposed to accept. Like raw, physical terrorism itself, this constantly looming fear factor is being shoved into our awareness. Given that we have been learning at every turn the last few years that our freedoms of privacy have been stripped from our lives by several avenues of outrageous methods of surveillance, how can it be that we remain so victimizable and our suppose guardians are powerless to put an end to it?

I can only conclude that it has been allowed to unfold this way. All of TPTB here and elsewhere in the world want to control the content and manner of our lives. The major tool for control these days is control over split-second communications, personal and public, the cell phone and the internet, everything else is of little importance as not relevant because of typical lags in the process of the informational exchange. Make us fear the cyber terrorism across the spectrum of our almost sacred electronic lives and we will give away that which has yet eluded their official grasp. It bears repeating the wise saying of a loose-tongued master: "Don't let a good crisis go to waste."

I just saw this story as reported here:

NYC Premiere of Rogen Film Canceled as Threats Fly

I'm a bit shocked because I've never seen anything like this happen before, though I do recall the shooting in a movie theater during a Batman movie that killed several people. I don't recall what the guy's motive was, but you can see the potential for such an attack to cause mass hysteria is wide open for extremists to exploit.

So, the premier release of a movie about a plan to assasinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un starring Seth Rogen and James Franco was cancelled after a group that calls itself "Guardians of Peace" threatened to cause violence in movie theaters if the movie hits theaters on Christmas Day as was scheduled. The same group was responsible for hacking into Sony Pictures Entertainment corporate offices, which resulted in a class action law suits filed against Sony.

I see some people believe "Guardians of Peace" is actually the US government. Fair enough, but I'm wondering if it's a group that has the firm belief that the Illuminati are behind movies for the sake of altering world history. You can find tons of videos on YouTube of people who keep analyzing movies finding evidence of symbols and messages associated somehow with the Illuminati (not saying that I believe all of it). It's an interesting idea though that there might be a group of "hacks" out there, regular people not a government organization, that is so convinced that the Illuminati or perhaps some secret CIA program the likes of which allowed 9/11 to be carried out needs to be stopped, and the only way they think these organizations can be stopped is by doing things like hacking into Sony's corporate offices and threatening violence on movie theaters if movies that look like they are propaganda designed to alter world history are shown to the public.

I don't go to movie theaters any more. I also stopped watching TV.

I also find it disturbing that even on this forum people are ready to repeat that macho (or maybe a pseudo-reverse psychology) rhetoric about how if they allow the movie to be cancelled and give into the demands of "terrorists" then the terrorists win. I mean, come on. That's a Bush administration slogan!

originally posted by: jtma508
Just a few minutes ago I posted my feelings on this in the existing Sony hack thread:

So now with the threats of violence apparently movie theaters are cancelling the opening of the movie and Sony is considering pulling the movie altogether. I think what they SHOULD do is release a statement saying that, 'Due to the threats of violence on movie theaters and movie goers from the GOP hacker group, Sony will not be releasing the movie to the theaters... instead, we will be releasing the movie for free, online to anyone who wants it and distributing DVD copies.'

The problem with that is, the GOP already has that movie and could post it up faster than Sony after a press release. Along with a few hundred gbs more of Sony's internal embarrassment. How many times have they apologized so far?
They have been hacked nonstop for the last few years yet they kept a file labeled Employee_password_list. Sony in general is broke. I think this is the last gasp for Sony Pictures. Can't say I'll miss the every other year crappy Spider-Man reboots...

a reply to: stumason

yeah, it's terrorism, alright....

these scumbags aren't guardians of peace....they're typical bully terrorist peabrains..

id like to see sony, the US, rogen, dumb face and everyone else give them(whoever they are) the double birds and release it to as any theaters as possible. for 1 day.
then put that bitch online for free for all...

all this over a movie. i cant believe it

The North Koreans are not the Palestinians. The North Koreans can fight back effectively. The Rothchild stooges are about to get an A$$ whooping. Screw on your tin foil hat tightly folks, its about to get interesting.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: stumason


Here was a suggested response, by a very clever ATS Member.

sony should resurrect the piratebay and put the movie there for everyone to see it

~Tenth

this

a reply to: Petros312


I don't see how that's a false premise. If the movie premier is cancelled and not to be shown in theaters because of threats from hackers (aka cyber-terrorists), then the terrorists do win.