RE: If they were SMART, they’d release the thing as far and wide as possible. It has gotten all sorts of free publicity.
I believe that the reason why they aren’t doing it is because the hackers have SENSITIVE information on many of their employees ( especially the higher ups ).
The “racist” e-mail of Amy Paschal is just one of them and they intend to release what they have strategically, one at a time.
In other words, it’s cyber-BLACKMAIL and because there’s DIRT on many of them, they caved (even when they say they haven’t ).
1) No media outlet would take one or a couple e-mails as being valid, they would properly assume that it was faked and not report them. The e-mails were dumped in a huge file, and reporters dug out the juicy e-mails from that file.
2) Again, since they dumped raw files, they really don't have anything to use as blackmail.
They made threats of physical violence at theaters, theaters went ‘oh, forget it, we're not chancing anything going wrong on Christmas, there's too many other movies being released that day, and we're not cannibalizing our sales to just show this movie.’
Sony has a contractual obligation to have the film shown on a certain number of screens for opening weekend. Failure to provide that will allow the production company (and any actors, musicians, etc who have a cut of the ticket sales) to make up any number they please as to what the release gross opening weekend SHOULD have been.
With the pullout of virtually every major chain, they didn't have enough screens to match the contract requirement. That means pulling the release.
Perhaps the production company, actors, and anyone else who has a piece of the movie might come to an agreement at some point in the future for an alternative release method or date, but it is not happening on Christmas. Since releases work on a schedule (to accommodate screen demands in contracts), it will likely not be quick, and will likely be held back until next summer.
Myself, I think it would be smart for everyone to just throw the dice to the wind and go for a widespread digital release to take advantage of the publicity. However, contracts that govern payment and profit sharing just aren't set up to handle that kind of opening; hopefully this will spur the development of such methods.
John Boehner is probably thinking “at least now Amy Paschal also knows what it’s like to be blackmailed.”
I agree with you. The Sony higher ups are scared to death of the personal emails that hopefully will still be revealed. They were probably happy to have the excuse that the theaters would not run it. I can’t wait for the emails!