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Sony on Wednesday pulled the Christmas Day release of the
film depicting a fictional assassination of Kim after major
theater chains said they would not show it due to unspecified
threats made by the hackers.
Clooney, in an interview Friday with online trade publication
Deadline.com, said no one would sign a petition he and his agent
circulated to top Hollywood figures supporting the film's
release.
The actor-director, whose past two directorial efforts were Sony
releases, also criticized the media for failing to link the
cyber attack to North Korea. The United States on Friday blamed
the country for the devastating cyber attack, calling it an
unacceptable act of intimidation and vowing to impose "costs and
consequences" on those responsible.
"We're talking about an actual country deciding what content
we're going to have. This affects every part of business that we
have," Clooney said. "We cannot be told we can't see something
by Kim Jong Un."
In the cyber attack on Sony and its employees, hackers released
a stream of embarrassing emails and demanded that the film's
release be scrapped.
"We have a responsibility to stand up against this. That's not
just Sony, but all of us, including my good friends in the press
who have the responsibility to be asking themselves: What was
important? What was the important story to be covering?" Clooney
added.
The news media's early coverage of the hack largely focused on
the content of leaked emails between Sony employees and film
producers.`
Clooney, who won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for
the film "Syriana" in 2005 and Best Picture for "Argo" in 2012,
said he is concerned about content in films and that it will now
be judged differently.
"The movies we make are the ones with challenging content, and I
don't want to see it all just be superhero movies. Nothing wrong
with them, but it's nice for people to have other films out
there," he added.
(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Eric Kelsey and
Jonathan Oatis)
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George
Clooney criticizes Hollywood in Sony cyber attack
