To put it simply, North Korea has been railing against Sony's upcoming film "The Interview," which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco as two media types sent into the despotic regime to assassinate Kim Jong-Un (with wacky hijinks presumably ensuing). As retaliation, North Korea paid for a hack of Sony Pictures' database, leaking sensitive information such as private emails, employee's personal information, etc. Thing have only escalated from there when the hackers threatened to bomb theaters airing the film.
DeadlineThe studio has officially scrapped its release plans [for The Interview]. Sony had little choice here, after the major theater chains announced earlier today they would not display the film given the threatening circumstances.
There's no telling exactly what the studio will do now. According to Wikipedia, the film cost $44 million (not including marketing, of course), and features performers ranging from James Franco and Seth Rogen to Eminem and Kanye West. It'd be almost unthinkable to imagine the company eating the costs and shelving it for good, but is VoD a viable option if theaters have refused to touch it?
We're already seeing aftershocks in the rest of the film industry. After the news, Fox quickly cancelled an upcoming project from Gore Verbinski and Steve Carrell set in North Korea. One has to wonder if this will spread to other mediums, from television to video games. There are plenty of games featuring the country in some fashion or another, like EA's upcoming Homeland 2, where North Korea is the enemy.
I don't know what to say here, really. Maybe that's because South Park already covered it years ago.