These are just a few of the emotions inside Sony Pictures this week: Disappointment. Relief. Anger. Fear.
And last but definitely not least, a deep desire for a little bit of peace and quiet over the holidays.
The studio is still reeling from the late November cyberattack that crippled its computer systems, and now it’s under severe scrutiny for canceling the Christmas release of “The Interview,” Seth Rogen and James Franco’s comedy about an attempted assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
U.S. officials now believe North Korea instigated the hack, lending credence to the Sony executives who privately started calling it a “terrorist act” weeks ago.
Those same executives are anxious about what might come next.
Now that the studio has basically caved to one of the hackers’ demands by not releasing “The Interview,” will the leaks stop? Or will the hackers still upload the “Christmas gift” of stolen data that was previously threatened?
“We simply do not know the answer,” one Sony executive said.
If the leaks do continue, and the gravity of the situation sinks in, major media outlets may exercise more restraint in reporting the contents of private emails and corporate documents. On that point, at least, Sony employees are expressing a speck of hope.
But in a reflection of the high stakes and ongoing fears, the employees only agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.
In a statement on Wednesday when the film’s release was scrapped, the company said “we stand by our filmmakers and their right to free expression and are extremely disappointed by this outcome.”
That sentiment is widely shared inside and outside the studio, partly because Hollywood types from the A list to the C-suite fear that a dangerous precedent has been set.
“We just gave a comfy foothold to censorship and it doesn’t get any better from this point on,” the comedian Patton Oswalt tweeted on Wednesday.
Inside Sony, there is both anger and disappointment that competing studios didn’t do more to support it in a time of need.
The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the industry, has responded tepidly to the attack and the fallout from it. Aside from a statement on Tuesday — “they are friends and colleagues and we feel for them” — the association has stayed silent.
George Clooney echoed this point in an interview with Deadline.com on Thursday. He revealed that he had circulated a petition saying “we fully support Sony’s decision not to submit to these hackers’ demands” — but no one was willing to sign it.
“It was a large number of people. It was sent to basically the heads of every place,” Clooney said without naming names.
The petition said, “This is not just an attack on Sony. It involves every studio, every network, every business and every individual in this country,” and it concluded, “We hope these hackers are brought to justice but until they are, we will not stand in fear. We will stand together.”
It’s outdated now, since Sony did cancel “The Interview.” In the interview, Clooney expressed sadness that “as we watched one group be completely vilified, nobody stood up.”
Within Sony, anger about that is mixed with relief that some people are now speaking out in solidarity.
There is also some relief that Sony’s stock has rebounded somewhat since the cancellation decision was announced.
Still, there is fear that the cyberattack will leave lasting damage.
The New York Times reported on Friday that “financiers are unsure whether to proceed with planned deals to back Sony films, as some talent agents — worried about management stability at Sony and long-term chaos — consider funneling scripts elsewhere.”
