{"id":491690,"date":"2026-02-22T08:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T08:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/491690\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T08:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T08:46:14","slug":"ex-sony-ceo-regrets-making-seth-rogens-the-interview-after-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/491690\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex Sony CEO Regrets Making Seth Rogen’s ‘The Interview’ After Hack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMichael Lynton<\/a>, the former CEO of Sony<\/a> Pictures Entertainment, is looking back on the 2014 film The Interview<\/a> with deep regret.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a recent excerpt from Lynton\u2019s upcoming memoir From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn\u2019t Own You, published recently in the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, he opens up about how greenlighting The Interview<\/a>, a dark comedy starring Seth Rogen<\/a> and James Franco<\/a> about a plan to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was the \u201cbiggest mistake of my career,\u201d because it led to the infamous Sony hack.<\/p>\n

\n\tLynton was made aware on Nov. 17, 2014, by the head of IT reporting that 70 percent of Sony\u2019s servers were irreparably damaged. Hackers released stolen emails that had confidential scripts and personal information. The FBI became involved with evidence suggesting that North Korea was most likely behind the attack to axe the release of the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie was pulled from the U.S.\u2019s major theater chains ahead of its Dec. 25 release after threats from hacker groups implied that moviegoers would be in danger at screenings, The Hollywood Reporter <\/a>reported at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to Lynton\u2019s memoir, eight months after the FBI investigated the cyberattack, they knew that North Korea was behind it. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe fallout resulted in the studio having its relationships ruined with prominent industry figures, including Will Smith, Adam Sandler and Angelina Jolie. Former President Barack Obama<\/a> even called Lynton to tell him, \u201cWhat were you thinking when you made killing the leader of a hostile foreign nation a plot point? Of course that was a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLynton can now acknowledge that his biggest mistake was \u201cmy decision to greenlight a project on the fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe admits that his motivation for allowing the film to be made in the first place stemmed from his \u201cdesire to belong\u201d and from his care for the \u201copinions of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJust for a moment, I wanted to join the badass gang that made subversive movies,\u201d Lynton wrote. \u201cFor a moment, I wanted to hang \u2014 as an equal \u2014 with the actors. I had grown tired of playing the responsible adult, of watching the party from the outside while I played Risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added, \u201cMy middle-school self took over, and my adult self lost the courage to disappoint the other kids. The party got out of hand, and the company, its employees, my family and I all paid dearly.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Lynton, the former CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, is looking back on the 2014 film The Interview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1780,49,48,75,42001,197458,4426,8718,114740],"class_list":{"0":"post-491690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-james-franco","13":"tag-michael-lynton","14":"tag-seth-rogen","15":"tag-sony","16":"tag-the-interview"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}