Five Things We've Learnt From The Sony Pictures Hacking Disaster

11 December 2014 | 12:41 pm | Mitch Knox

It's a hard-knock life... for high-paid executives

The past three weeks have seen an unprecedented catastrophe unfold for US-based production house Sony Pictures, after a group of hackers calling themselves the Guardians Of Peace publicly leaked online about 40 gigabytes worth of confidential or otherwise sensitive company information.

The attack, which hit on November 24 (although Sony wouldn't admit to it for several days after the fact), was as wide-reaching as it was unexpected, with the company steering sharply into crisis mode as it progressively became apparent that the hackers had managed to make off with everything from social security numbers, credit card details and personal correspondence to salaries, scripts and even completed — but unreleased — movies.

There has been much conjecture about the motives and affiliations of the group behind the attack, with most speculation landing on North Korea due to the country's widely publicised condemnation of Sony's impending Seth Rogen/James Franco flick The Interview, but that's looking less likely in the face of its denial of being responsible for the attacks and the fact nations aren't really known for cute names and graphics when committing acts of mass data theft.

So, we don't really know who's behind the attacks. But what we do know has been pretty damn enlightening…

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they're making bad movies, and they know it

If nothing else, the Guardians Of Peace's attack on Sony has confirmed what we all pretty much suspected — everyone involved in the movie-making process, from front-line employees to upper-level executives, is well aware of the fact that they are constantly putting out substandard cinematic fare.

Which somehow hurts more.

One of the earliest leaks to spill out of the gaping hole in Sony's side — only to turn around to become a thorn in it — was an innocuous-looking file called "Sony_2012_comments", which happened to include a veritable jackpot of employee feedback about the state of things at the movie house. Perhaps the most pertinent piece of information to surface from the pile was that Sony's employees know that Adam Sandler films suck, and they're powerless to stop it.

"Stop or reduce support for areas that have no more value (Sandler movies, DVD)," one employee suggested in their feedback.

"There is a general 'blah-ness' to the films we produce," wrote another. "Although we manage to produce an innovative film once in a while … we continue to be saddled with the mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films."

"I hope management looks closely at the money spent on development and term deals to ensure efficiency," another employee offered. "There are a lot of term deal personnel as well as creative personnel, yet we only release a dozen or so Columbia Pictures a year, for example. And will we still be paying for Adam Sandler? Why?"

It's a good question.

things get pretty personal at the top

Arguably the most infamous exchange among the released correspondence comes from studio co-chairman Amy Pascal and renowned producer Scott Rudin (The Social NetworkThe Grand Budapest Hotel), discussing Angelina Jolie and her forthcoming Cleopatra biopic. As it turns out, not only the front line staff are aware of some of the stinkers the studio has on its hands — it's just that the executives get far more colourful about it.

After a back-and-forth with Pascal over Jolie's objection to director David Fincher bailing on Cleopatra to tackle the highly necessary second movie about Steve Jobs in the past two years, Rudin knocks things up a notch, outright admitting that he doesn't want to make Jolie's film, and finding the time to slot in just what he thinks about the actress on a personal level, too.

"I've told you exactly how I want to do this material," he wrote to Pascal. "It's the ONLY way I want to do this material. I'm not remotely interested in presiding over a $180m ego bath that we both know will be the career-defining debacle for us both. I'm not destroying my career over a minimally talented spoiled brat who thought nothing of shoving this off her plate for eighteen months so she could go direct a movie. I have no desire to be making a movie with her, or anybody, that she runs and that we don't. She's a camp event and a celebrity and that's all and the last thing anybody needs is to make a giant bomb with her that any fool could see coming. We will end up being the laughing stock of our industry and we will deserve it, which is so clearly where this is headed that I cannot believe we are still wasting our time with it."

Ouch. Not everyone is so prescient, though...

they're making bad movies, and they don't know it

One of the most recent leaks to have been publicised details email correspondence between Amy Pascal and actor Jonah Hill discussing the potential for a crossover between the successful Jump Street revival and Men In Black franchises.

Your face right now.

"jump street merging with mib i think that's clean and rad and powerful," Hill wrote to Pascal in an email chain in which he pitches a title for the crossover — Jump Street X Men In Black — apparently after having seen a mock-up poster with too many numbers for his tastes. "i just think we've built our brand and min [sic] is such a huge brand its like the numbers are just confusing ... i saw the numbers and that poster and just got a headache haha," Hill wrote.

"either way! how fucking sick is this?!"

If by "this", Hill means "a Will Smith-less, Tommy Lee Jones-less, unnecessary revival of a dead franchise at the expense of what could have been a brilliant skewering of trilogy enders in the same way 22 Jump Street nailed sequels", then not really all that fucking sick. Come on. Let's not pretend that hearing the words "we don't have a script yet" and "we'll be greenlighting the movie off the concept and the talent involved" (thanks, Columbia Pictures president of production Hannah Minghella!) are doing anything for your confidence levels about this.

they blow their chances to make good movies

Nothing could convince me that bringing Spider-Man into the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe wouldn't be a good thing, so hearing that Sony and Marvel came close to trans-license agreement to allow the web-slinger to rub shoulders with the Avengers in the forthcoming Captain America: Civil War — he played a pivotal role in the comics original — only to have it all unravel at the last minute is pretty depressing stuff.

Instead, Sony are filling their time with more bad ideas, like yet another Spider-Man trilogy, or maybe a Spider-Man comedy to be produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie22 Jump Street) because who gives a fuck about anything anyway?

tomorrow's only a day away

Despite arguably the worst instance of corporate misfortune this year, Sony is persevering with most of its plans (well, maybe except for keeping Rudin on Cleopatra). 

For example, although eagerly awaited family distraction Annie was among the complete movies leaked by the Guardians Of Peace, the company is not anticipating that big a hit to its box-office takings — not because it's a bad movie (although it could be, I don't know), but because Sony believes that family films are generally not targeted as seriously as adult-oriented material. Looking at the stats — Annie has only been downloaded about 206,000 times since it was leaked, while Brad Pitt WWII flick Fury has passed the million mark in the same time frame — they might actually be right.

But the pre-released films — among which were also Mr TurnerStill Alice and To Write Love On Her Arms — aren't the only setback through which Sony is staying the course. To bring everything back full circle to The Interview — the film that may or may not have started it all — regardless of who is behind the attacks, what they've taken, the damage the attack has wrought to Sony's reputation and its future prospects, the studio is adamant about releasing the film on Christmas Day. It mightn't be enough to save the year for the hundreds of employees left vulnerable as a result of the Guardians Of Peace's hack, but at least Rogen and Franco will have a Merry Christmas to the respective tunes of the $8.4 million and $6.5 million they were paid to make the movie that could have been the initial catalyst for the studio's downfall. Way to go, boys. Way to go.