Not Comics: Threats Related To Sony Hacking Incident Lead To Development Killed On Pyongyang Movie



This isn't my world or even anything in which I'm terribly, terribly interested, but the recent Sony hacking flap and its massive overtones of potential North Korean government involvement because of the movie The Interview has led to a threat being made against theaters showing the Seth Rogen/James Franco movie (which was due to open Christmas Day), which led to theater chains saying "no thank you" to running the movie, which lead to Sony cancelling the movie's release. There's all sorts of points at which the story could be running on a fuel of pure bullshit, but even if everything were fully legitimate that would still be a depressing story. Still, one might remember that nearly ever major media company failed to either run or otherwise seek to make available in a responsible way the Jylland-Posten editorial cartoons despite the absolute newsworthiness and necessity of the public knowing what those cartoons looked like once the controversy kicked into high gear. This kind of straight-up push-shove commercial decision seem almost a slam dunk if you're willing to kick first principles to the curb.

One piece of intriguing fallout: a conception of the Pyongyang graphic novel attached to Steve Carell is apparently not going to be developed now, due to what the article claims is its sensitive subject matter. That's a bunch of horseshit, too. I imagine people will focus on the description which makes Pyongyang sound like a spy movie, but 1) I'm not sure if that's an accurate description of what was to be a loose adaptation featuring such elements or if it was simply entertainment media shorthand for a project that might be more difficult to describe otherwise, 2) even if they were going to do a version that concentrated on the North Korean city's S&M scene, the decision to defund art because of political persuasion one through a calculator would still be a horrible, depressing outcome.

You should read the book, if you haven't. It's really good. If nothing else, it might help when it comes to understanding our new Hays board.
 
posted 10:19 pm PST | Permalink
 

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