Michael Lynton, the former CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, now wishes he had thought a little more carefully before greenlighting “The Interview,” Seth Rogen‘s dark comedy about a plan to assassinate North Korean leader 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 book that publishes next week, the executive admits he may have made the decision too hastily.
But when Lynton was informed on Nov. 24, 2014 that all of Sony’s email systems were down as well as its production and financial IT systems, he had no idea that North Korea could be behind the massive tech meltdown affecting his studio. All he knew was that he, Rogen and co-chair Amy Pascal had enthusiastically decided to make a smart comedy and were planning to release it in theatres on Christmas.
Causing one of the biggest upheavals in Hollywood history, the IT meltdown irreparably damaged 70% of Sony’s servers, and exposed private communications from executives and talent as well as personal information.
“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 lost 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 asked 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.
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North Korea threatened theaters with violence and Sony ended up pulling the theatrical release of “The Interview,” although it played in a few independent theaters. It ended up becoming the first major studio release to premiere on the internet.
Lynton concludes that some of his motivation for greenlighting the film came from a desire 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,” adds Lynton, who greenlit the film immediately after a favorable table 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.
From Variety US