On NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, Sony lawyer David Boies assured host Chuck Todd Sunday (Dec. 21) that The Interview would be released in some form.
That is the Seth Rogen comedy about assassinating North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un whose Dec. 25 release was shelved—Sony now says delayed—after a massive hack of Sony Pictures and threats of a 9/11-style attack if the film were released, a threat that prompted major theater chains to decide not to show the film.
The U.S. government has determined that the North Korean government was behind the hack.
"Sony only delayed this," said Boies, "Sony has been fighting to get this picture distributed. It will be distributed. How it's going to be distributed, I don't think anybody knows quite yet. But it's going to be distributed."
Boies said Sony didn't really have a choice in not releasing it on Christmas Day as planned. "You can't release a movie unless you have a distribution channel," he told Todd. "The theaters were subject to threats of physical violence against the theaters and against their customers. And quite understandably, a large number of them, a majority of them, decided not to show the picture when it was scheduled."
Boies echoed Sony Picture CEO Michael Lynton in alleging that nobody stepped up to support Sony, aside from maybe George Clooney and a few others. "[N]one of the second guessers who are now out there saying, 'Oh, what a terrible thing this is,' none of them were standing up to help Sony then," he said.
