Exclusive: Sony Emails Say State Department Blessed Kim Jong-Un Assassination in ‘The Interview’

The Daily Beast ^ | 12.17.14 | William Boot

[Dave346]

The Daily Beast has unearthed several emails that reveal at least two U.S. government officials screened a rough cut of the Kim Jong-Un assassination comedy The Interview in late June and gave the film—including a final scene that sees the dictator’s head explode—their blessing.

The claim that the State Department played an active role in the decision to include the film’s gruesome death scene is likely to cause fury in Pyongyang. Emails between the Sony Entertainment CEO and a security consultant even appear to suggest the U.S. government may support the notion that The Interview would be useful propaganda against the North Korean regime.

Back on June 20, the first threat lobbed by North Korean officials against the holiday blockbuster seemed as empty as a North Korean villager’s lunch box.

The Seth Rogen/James Franco-starrer, which centers on a TV host and his producer being tasked by the CIA with assassinating North Korean despot Kim Jong-Un, was branded “an act of war.” Studio executives at distributor Sony Pictures and the general public mostly laughed it off as yet another example of muscle-flexing by the rotund ruler.

But now, the controversy surrounding the political satire has gotten serious.

In late November, a group that calls itself the Guardians of Peace breached Sony’s company servers, and leaked several large caches of private internal data online, including the emails of several top Sony executives, Social Security numbers and private info of employees, screeners of upcoming feature films, and more. Some believe it to be the work of North Korean hackers as payback for The Interview, and while a spokesman for North Korea claimed ignorance, he added that the hack “might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK in response to its appeal” against the film.

[Wuli]

The Obama-Hollyweird ties backfire on Sony Pictures Entertainment and the U.S.

Kept out of it altogether, U.S. government hands would have been clean and the U.S. government would have been able to say with 100% accuracy that whatever is in the film is the film maker’s exercise of their freedom of speech. ANY seeming “approval” by the White Houses changes that and gives a charge of “propaganda” some legitimacy. I am not saying North Korea is right, in any sense, nor do I think SPE was right to cave-in to the threats. But all would have been better if no U.S. officials had any meetings with or gave any even tangential approval to the film makers.

[CatOwner]

Well, that should cripple the movie industry permanently.

[Sherman Logan]

I don’t see a problem.

Company makes a movie that might very well be anticipated to generate complicaitons for US foreign policy. They voluntarily submit it to State as a heads-up. State says, “Thanks.”

Now if Sony had felt they were obligated to show it to State, or if State had tried to pressure them into changing it, then we’d have a problem.

But I haven’t seen evidence that happened.

[Bon mots]

Capitulation time!