Ex Sony Pictures Boss Regrets Seth Rogen’s ‘The Interview’

Michael Lynton, the former CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, now needs he had thought just a little more rigorously before greenlighting “The Interview,” Seth Rogen‘s darkish comedy about a plan to assassinate North Korean chief Kim Jong Un.

Lynton’s new memoir “From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn’t Own You,” co-written with Joshua L. Steiner, was excerpted in the Wall St. Journal Thursday, and in the ebook that publishes next week, the government admits he could have made the choice too rapidly.

But when Lynton was informed on Nov. 24, 2014 that all of Sony’s electronic mail methods have been down in addition to its manufacturing and monetary IT methods, he had no thought that North Korea could possibly be behind the large tech meltdown affecting his studio. All he knew was that he, Rogen and co-chair Amy Pascal had enthusiastically determined to make a sensible comedy and have been planning to release it in theaters on Christmas.

Causing one in all the largest upheavals in Hollywood historical past, the IT meltdown irreparably broken 70% of Sony’s servers, and uncovered personal communications from executives and expertise in addition to private data.

“Over the next few days and weeks the situation only worsened as the hackers released stolen emails that revealed terrible judgment, confidential scripts and personal information — including my family’s,” Lynton writes in his memoir.

As a result of what was revealed in the emails, the studio misplaced relationships with important stars including Will Smith, Adam Sandler and Angelina Jolie. Lynton says he spoke to President Obama eight months after the hack, when it was clear that North Korea had hacked Sony. Obama requested Lynton, “What were you thinking when you made killing the leader of a hostile foreign nation a plot point? Of course that was a mistake.”

“Not long after the hack, a mysterious website appeared, inviting journalists to type ‘Die Sony’ into any internet browser, where they could find tens of thousands of leaked emails. Emails in which studio executives criticized movie stars. Emails that had sensitive employment contracts. Then the hackers started releasing employee health records and Social Security numbers. They published pirated versions of upcoming movies such as ‘The Karate Kid.’ They even released the confidential script of the new James Bond movie. That’s the ultimate Hollywood sacrilege. As part of the leaked documents, my daughters’ health records flashed across the internet,” Lynton writes.

North Korea threatened theaters with violence and Sony ended up pulling the theatrical release of “The Interview,” although it performed in a few impartial theaters. It ended up turning into the first major studio release to premiere on the web.

Lynton concludes that some of his motivation for greenlighting the movie got here from a need to be accepted and “hang as an equal with the actors.”

“Just for a moment, I wanted to join the badass gang that made subversive movies. For a moment, I wanted to hang — as an equal — with the actors. I had grown tired of playing the responsible adult, of watching the party from the outside while I played Risk….The party got out of hand, and the company, its employees, my family and I all paid dearly,” Lynton says.

The former Sony boss also writes that “two other factors complicated the situation. First, Amy Pascal, my co-chairperson at Sony, and Stacey Snider, the chairwoman at Universal Studios, while friends, had a 20-year rivalry. Second, Rogen felt that he had to make each movie more and more outrageous to keep his audience engaged. So when either Stacey or Amy refused to greenlight a film because it was too offensive, the other agreed to make it. And guess what? It was inevitably a hit.”

“Sony found itself in the difficult position of not being able to say no, and Rogen found himself in the enviable position of getting approval for almost anything that he chose to present,” provides Lynton, who greenlit the movie instantly after a good desk read of the script.

Lynton’s memoir, “From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn’t Own You,” publishes Feb. 24 from Avid Reader Press.