Rantz: Cowardly not to release ‘The Interview’

UPDATE: Programmed as a playful substitute to “The Interview,” Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s North Korea comedy “Team America: World Police” also has been pulled from theaters.

—Original story—

Taken from The Jason Rantz Show.

The United States government is ready to blame North Korea for the huge hack on Sony Pictures.

As CBS News Justice and Homeland Security correspondent Bob Orr points out, this is actually kind of a big deal.

“It’s very serious business because that would be a state-sponsored cyber-attack and if they’re connected to the terrorist threats, basically a state-sponsored terror threat against a U.S. corporation.”

Everyone figured North Korea was behind this to begin with because of the content of the film “The Interview,” which involves the CIA asking a pair of interviewers to kill the leader of North Korea.

On Wednesday, the hackers released a threat that basically implied they’d blow up a bunch of theaters that played the film. It spooked some people and theaters, including AMC and Regal, that decided they weren’t going to carry the film.

So Sony announced they won’t be releasing the film, at least not right now, and not in the next week. It is questionable as to whether or not they are going to release the film in any iteration at any point at all. According to a spokesperson from Sony, the studio “has no further release plans.”

This is a movie that cost $44 million and the question is, will it ever make that money back? Erich Schwartzel of The Wall Street Journal weighed in and said, “The language that’s been used by a lot of major theater chains is that they want the studio to postpone the release, but it’s really become such a radioactive film that it’s hard to imagine anyone really picking it up right now.”

The fallout from this decision has been pretty considerable. Film critic Richard Roeper points out some of the big implications.

“This is a small satire. What if this had been a $250 million blockbuster? What if they get emails about the next giant big summer movie they’re going to put out. Are they not going to put that in theaters either?”

Actor Rob Lowe posted a tweet that simply said this:

Wow. Everyone caved. The hackers won. An utter and complete victory for them. Wow.

— Rob Lowe (@RobLowe) December 17, 2014

Mediaite.com columnist Matt Wilstein released a column that I thought summed this up really well. It begins: “It’s time to bow down and welcome your new North Korean overlords, America, because apparently the terrorists have won.”

Newt Gingrich, of course a conservative, sent out a series of tweets that included:

Sony should release “the Interview” online for free so North Koreans can't censor American creativity–should have Korean language version

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) December 17, 2014

I think Sony acted cowardly. I don’t think they chose not to release this film because they think you or I would be bombed to death in the theaters by some terrorist from North Korea. I think they are making a decision based on fear because they fear the next release of data from the cyber terrorist who hacked into Sony. I think they fear that they’re going to be hit with even more embarrassing emails, with even more embarrassing data about salaries of employees. They want to basically save face and they do want to do what is good for their own employees. But the truth is they’re doing it at the expense of promoting freedom.

The movie theaters that refuse to carry the films are also cowardly. Frankly, their concern is completely illogical. Vague online threats from hackers that they’re going to bomb a theater are hard to believe. We’ve got to be careful, of course, but it’s pretty unbelievable because this is North Korea.

It’s a country that has been run by a series of egomaniacal maniacs who are all talk and no action. They come out all the time with these empty threats. North Korea can’t fire a missile more than 100 feet. They definitely can’t infiltrate the United States with all of these North Korean spies that are camped out by the AMC or Regal theaters just waiting for some dopey American movie-goer to walk into “The Interview” before being blown up.

Based on our history with North Korea, on the history of their baseless threats, I can’t imagine that they’re able to follow through in any meaningful way that would legitimately concern our safety. By the way, let’s just point out this isn’t even the first movie that’s mocked their dear leader.

Do you remember “Team America: World Police?” It mocked the North Korean leader mercilessly. In fact, following all “The Interview” uproar, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Dallas said it was going to air the film anyway, but when Sony decided to pull the film, it said it was going to show “Team America: World Police” instead.

This is all alarmist. This is cowardly. This is wrong. Since when do we let a bunch of terrorists dictate our freedom? That is really what this is all about. This is absolutely about freedom, the freedom to put out films is about freedom of expression, the First Amendment. It’s absurd not to release this film.

What do you think?

Taken from KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz Show

JS