The inside story: The cyber attack on Sony has unravelled relationships in Hollywood

The disclosure of racially tinged emails from Amy Pascal, the co-chairwoman of the studio, led her to meet in person on Thursday with black leaders including Reverend Al Sharpton, who had condemned the exchange between her and the producer Scott Rudin as “offensive, insulting” when it first became public.

Financiers are unsure about proceeding with planned deals to back Sony films, as some talent agents consider funnelling scripts elsewhere.

Even Sony’s relations with news outlets have been dealt a lasting blow, with the studio upset about the willingness of some reporters to dig through stolen documents and media contacts given an unusually candid glimpse into how executives try to manipulate coverage.

It is nearly impossible to calculate likely financial losses associated with The Interview until any option for displaying the movie has been closed off. Currently, the studio is reluctant to consider charging for it online, on the assumption that few consumers would share credit cards with a firm under cyber attack.

Over the last week, Sony’s attackers began threatening the company’s partners in the entertainment industry, beyond just theatres and theatre chains. Several Sony vendors mentioned in the stolen data trove have begun receiving threatening correspondence from the attackers.

Security experts said that “anxiety levels were high” and many vendors complained on Thursday that Sony’s decision to halt the release of The Interview might only embolden attackers.

In a more human calculus, a significant loser may be Seth Rogen, the writer-director-star who became the principal public face of The Interview. There was a growing sentiment on the Sony lot that Rogen and his filmmaking colleagues had exposed employees and the audience to digital damage and physical threat by pushing his outrageous humour to the limit and backing the film to the last.

The impression that Rogen overreached was enforced by the publication of an email in which he reprimanded Pascal for pressing for minor changes in the assassination scene. “This is now a story of Americans changing their movie to make North Koreans happy,” Rogen wrote. “It’s a very damning story.”

Among his future projects at Sony is Sausage Factory, an R-rated animated film about a frankfurter’s existential crisis.

The strains between Rogen and Pascal unravelled only one thread in a Hollywood fabric that was thoroughly shredded by the hacking and ensuing threat. Much of the damage centred on the action, or lack thereof, among high industry executives who never stepped forward to assist Sony.

Wednesday’s decision to withdraw the film — a nearly unprecedented capitulation to bullying by an angry foreign power — brought public silence from the Motion Picture Association of America and its chief executive, Christopher J Dodd, who had remained quiet through a three-week media onslaught on Sony.

People associated with Dodd, speaking privately, said he failed to mobilise competing studio chiefs in support of the studio, partly because they feared drawing attention to themselves and partly because they doubted that public statements or actions would be effective.

That failure has drawn criticism from senior theatre executives, who — again privately, as they will need to work with Dodd and the studios — blame the trade association and Sony for pushing onto them the onus for cancelling the film, rather than Sony taking responsibility for a decision that was sure to offend some freedom-minded filmmakers. Sony sees it differently, having received clear signals that the theatre chains simply did not want the movie.

Another set of bruised relationships involves black stars and filmmakers, a group with whom Sony formerly had sturdy ties. More than a few black moviemakers — notably Kevin Hart, Will Packer, Ice Cube and Will Smith — have flourished at Sony under Pascal and Clint Culpepper, who runs Sony’s Screen Gems unit.

But Pascal and Culpepper both got burned by the email dump, which included messages in which she traded racial jokes with the producer Scott Rudin about President Obama’s supposed taste in black-themed movies, while Culpepper called Hart “a whore” in reference to high salary demands.

Apologies, public and private, weren’t enough. Sharpton took aim at Pascal, saying her comments reflected a “troubling” lack of diversity in Hollywood. Sharpton notably did not call for Pascal’s ouster after their 90-minute meeting. He said Pascal had committed to improving diversity in Hollywood movies and TV shows.