Well, whaddaya know? Mass, sustained public shame and scorn still sometimes works after all:
After a month of leaks, embarrassment, and terrorist threats — not to mention an admonishment from President Obama himself — Sony has reversed course and will release "The Interview" on Christmas Day in a limited number of theaters.
The Alamo Drafthouse, an independent theater chain based in Austin, confirmed to Yahoo Movies that it will screen the Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy about assassinating North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The Plaza theater chain in Georgia also tweeted that it would be showing the film.
And why not? It's not like Sony hasn't already sustained quite a bit of cost in this saga, both in terms of PR damage from the leaked emails and payroll information, the foregone revenue of the other four films the NoKo hack leaked to the public, and the estimated $64 million it will cost Sony to fix and enhance cybersecurity on their internal computer networks. They might as well go forward with The Interview and recoup what dough they can.
Besides which, you have to admit that this incident has garnered the Rogan/Franco farce a motherlode of free publicity that would have cost a fortune for Sony to drum up themselves. I'm sure that was the deciding factor in their about-face. Or, "ALWAYS follow the money".
What Sony's spine-infusion symbolizes, former Reagan Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams urges be put into actual, practical reality:
The United States has been taking a soft approach when it comes to North Korea for some time, former Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams told Newsmax TV Tuesday, and more pressure needs to be put on the nation's finances and economy.
"We know that being easy and soft and the hand of friendship and all that doesn't work with Kim Jong-un," Abrams told "America's Forum" host John Bachman. "We have been a little bit soft on North Korea, frankly and what's it gotten us — nothing."....
"That's what really concerned them most during the Bush Administration, when we went after their money and their banking system, and that's where I'd try to hit them again," he said....
"You can start telling other banks around the world no one who deals with North Korea can enter the U.S. banking system," he said. "You can make them, in a sense, a financial outlaw. We did that about 10 years ago and it really hurt their economy and boy, there's never been a better case for doing it than this one where we've now identified them."
Cut the NoKos off financially, cut off all aid, stop facilitating their WMD distribution enterprises - basically make the ChiComms have to take over all of those roles entirely, as well as the associated costs. Stop paying protection money to the Un-dictator vis-a-vie his nukes. Call his bluff. Sounds like a plan to me.
One that Barack Obama will never undertake, naturally. Though the Regime did surreptitiously interrupt the NoKos' internet service, so the cornfed tinpot had to go without his porn for a night or two. That's something, I guess.
Exit question: How will Pyongyang retaliate for Sony's defiance? By another hack leaking the studio's plans for The Interview II? Or by demanding Executive Producer credit for the first one?
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