{"id":297297,"date":"2026-02-23T00:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T00:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/297297\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T00:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T00:05:08","slug":"former-sony-ceo-says-greenlighting-seth-rogen-and-james-francos-the-interview-was-a-big-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/297297\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Sony CEO Says Greenlighting Seth Rogen and James Franco’s The Interview Was A Big Mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh, 2014, you rascal. Looking back, things certainly were simpler, like when Snapchat was the most popular app around, Pharrell Williams wore questionable hats<\/a>, and Ellen DeGeneres shared \u201cthe most epic selfie of all time.\u201d Before she got canceled. Like I said, simpler times. Do you know who else remembers 2014? Former CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment<\/a>, Michael Lynton. Why? Because that was the year Seth Rogen and James Franco<\/a>\u2018s The Interview<\/a> came to theaters, and oh boy, hindsight really is 20-20 sometimes.<\/p>\n

Lynton\u2019s biggest mistake<\/p>\n

In a recent excerpt from Lynton\u2019s upcoming memoir, From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn\u2019t Own You, published in the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, Lynton opens up about how The Interview\u2019s plot involving two bumbling men\u2019s 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

In the excerpt, Lynton recalls the phone call he received about 70 percent of Sony\u2019s servers being \u201cfried,\u201d along with hackers releasing innumerable private emails, confidential scripts, and personal information. Most of us remember the incident as the time PlayStation Online was down for 23 days, leading to the decimation of leaderboards and log-in progress. Tragic, I know. It didn\u2019t take long for the FBI to get involved in the hack. The law enforcement agency then suggested that North Korea was the most likely culprit. They wanted to keep The Interview from releasing, seeing the satirical comedy as an affront to Kim Jong Un, who, as you know, does not mess around.<\/p>\n

The Sony hack inspires chaos<\/p>\n

The hack was mighty, causing all manners of chaos throughout Sony, including, but not limited to, damaging the studio\u2019s relationships with celebrities like Will Smith, Adam Sandler, and Angelina Jolie. Even President Barack Obama got involved. The former president called Lynton at the time, saying, \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

Middle school mentality<\/p>\n

In the excerpt, Lynton admits he greenlit The Interview because of his \u201cdesire to belong,\u201d while being concerned about the \u201copinions of others.\u201d Wow, dude. Way to jeopardize national security and almost tank your company for the sake of sitting at the cool table in the Hollywood cafeteria.<\/p>\n

\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

Lynton 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

Good grief, dude. It\u2019s nice that you can finally admit the depth of the mistake, but honestly, what the hell? I\u2019m sure your former job felt like an ongoing popularity contest, but you\u2019ve got to be above all that stuff if you want to become an industry titan. We\u2019re lucky the hack wasn\u2019t worse.<\/p>\n

\"JoBlo<\/p>\n

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Source:
\n Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oh, 2014, you rascal. Looking back, things certainly were simpler, like when Snapchat was the most popular app…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,3682,156,18883,111,139,69,10693,6361,163812],"class_list":["post-297297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-comedy","tag-entertainment","tag-james-franco","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-seth-rogen","tag-sony","tag-the-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}