Ex-Sony boss regrets Seth Rogen's The Interview
Ex-Sony chief Michael Lynton has admitted that he regrets Seth Rogen’s 2014 movie The Interview, which featured a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Ex-Sony chief Michael Lynton regrets Seth Rogen’s The Interview.
Lynton was the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment who greenlit Rogen’s 2014 dark comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and he admitted that, in hindsight, it may not have been the best idea after Sony was targeted by hacker group Guardians of Peace, who leaked confidential data and demanded the company axe the movie.
In an excerpt from his new memoir, From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn’t Own You, co-written with Joshua L. Steine, which was obtained by the Wall Street Journal, he wrote: “Not long after the hack, a mysterious website appeared, inviting journalists to type ‘Die Sony’ into any internet browser, where they could find tens of thousands of leaked emails. Emails in which studio executives criticized movie stars. Emails that had sensitive employment contracts. Then the hackers started releasing employee health records and Social Security numbers. They published pirated versions of upcoming movies such as The Karate Kid. They even released the confidential script of the new James Bond movie. That’s the ultimate Hollywood sacrilege. As part of the leaked documents, my daughters’ health records flashed across the internet.”
And, he revealed that even former US President Barack Obama questioned his decision, when they spoke eight months after the hack.
He shared that Obama asked: “What were you thinking when you made killing the leader of a hostile foreign nation a plot point? Of course that was a mistake.”
While Lynton regrets greenlighting The Interview, he admitted he approved it because he wanted to “hang as an equal with the actors.”
He wrote: “Just for a moment, I wanted to join the bad*** gang that made subversive movies. For a moment, I wanted to hang - as an equal - with the actors. I had grown tired of playing the responsible adult, of watching the party from the outside while I played Risk… The party got out of hand, and the company, its employees, my family and I all paid dearly.”
He also revealed that tensions between Amy Pascal, his co-chairperson at Sony, and Stacey Snider, the chairwoman at Universal Studios, helped to get the movie approved.
He explained: “Two other factors complicated the situation. First, Amy Pascal, my co-chairperson at Sony, and Stacey Snider, the chairwoman at Universal Studios, while friends, had a 20-year rivalry. Second, Rogen felt that he had to make each movie more and more outrageous to keep his audience engaged. So when either Stacey or Amy refused to greenlight a film because it was too offensive, the other agreed to make it. And guess what? It was inevitably a hit.
“Sony found itself in the difficult position of not being able to say no, and Rogen found himself in the enviable position of getting approval for almost anything that he chose to present.”
