Sony Pictures Hack

Thargor

I dont see a thread for this seriously entertaining car crash in slow motion thats taking place at Sony, theres only been about 40 GB worth of apparently a few terrabytes of information released so far but some of it is gold, heres loads of Sony employees bitching about how bad their films are in particular Adam Sandler:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=945463

The whole thing on Buzzfeed is well worth following though and it promises loads more to come:

It's time to take a moment of silence for Sony Pictures, because more startling revelations about leaked information just came out and employees are starting to panic. BuzzFeed raked through some 40 gigabytes of data and found everything from medical records to unreleased scripts. This is probably the worst corporate hack in history. We already knew that the Sony Pictures hack was bad, but this is just absurd. BuzzFeed's discoveries include documents detailing "employee criminal background checks, salary negotiations, and doctors' letters explaining the medical rationale for leaves of absence." They also include "the script for an unreleased pilot written by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan to the results of sales meetings with local TV executives." Better call Saul.
Meanwhile, Fusion's Kevin Roose is reporting on what exactly happened at Sony Pictures when the hack went down. The hack was evidently so extensive that even the company gym had to shut down. And once the hackers started releasing the data, people started "freaking out," one employee said. That saddest part about all of this is that the very worst is probably still to come. Hackers say they stole 100 terabytes of data in total. If only 40 gigabytes contained all of this damning information, just imagine what 100 terabytes contains.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomgara/sony-hack

Faith+1

Thargor wrote: »

I dont see a thread for this seriously entertaining car crash in slow motion thats taking place at Sony, theres only been about 40 GB worth of apparently a few terrabytes of information released so far but some of it is gold, heres loads of Sony employees bitching about how bad their films are in particular Adam Sandler:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=945463

The whole thing on Buzzfeed is well worth following though and it promises loads more to come:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomgara/sony-hack

There's not much love for Adam Sandler at Sony! Lol

Wossack

gas thing for a government spokesperson to say lol:

When asked by the BBC on Tuesday if their country was responsible for the Sony Pictures hack, a North Korean government spokesperson replied, “Wait and see.”

Thargor

I love these Powerpoint slides they made for various films, they're straight out of The Onion:

DoYouEvenLift

Always wanted to see the mastermind work that goes into developing movies like grown ups...no surprise seeing those little PowerPoint's. It really must be a room filled with a panel of complete kunts working on movies nowadays

pixelburp

None of this kind of soulless research comes as any great surprise; when you watch stuff like the 'new' Spider Man movies it's blatantly clear they were a passionless, cynical product from the ground up. Now we have the proof

Spare a thought though for (what was likely to be) the poor feckers who had to make all those PowerPoints. You can guarantee it was some intern or low-level worker who had to slave away on the things, constantly revising the minutiae at the behest of some buzzword-slinging marketing wonk.

I wonder what the fallout with all this might be? I imagine the other big studios will be doing some pretty major IT audits as we speak, with Sony presumably now in damage limitation mode...

DoYouEvenLift

pixelburp wrote: »

None of this kind of soulless research comes as any great surprise; when you watch stuff like the 'new' Spider Man movies it's blatantly clear they were a passionless, cynical product from the ground up. Now we have the proof

Spare a thought though for (what was likely to be) the poor feckers who had to make all those PowerPoints. You can guarantee it was some intern or low-level worker who had to slave away on the things, constantly revising the minutiae at the behest of some buzzword-slinging marketing wonk.

I wonder what the fallout with all this might be? I imagine the other big studios will be doing some pretty major IT audits as we speak, with Sony presumably now in damage limitation mode...

Sony are already having financial troubles so I'd say this will all just make it even worse. Only a fraction of the hacked material has been leaked so far, next few weeks should be entertaining

AnonoBoy

They're all hacks at Sony Pictures, wha? wha? :pac:

Thargor

10 further developments, all pretty interesting:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-10-new-developments-757219?Facebook_20141212

4. George Clooney is eager to take on Rupert Murdoch.

Clooney's reported leaked email shows the actor is ready to direct Hack Attack, based on journalist Nick Davies’ book about the UK phone-hacking scandal at Murdoch’s tabloid empire. "[H]ow much fun are we gonna have…the stakes are higher than citizen kane…if we tell the truth in a compelling way…rupert won’t get time/warner…cnn won’t be fox….i’m so excited to do this film..and for those of you listening in…i’m the son of a news man…everything will be double sourced..so come on with your lawsuits…****ers...,’ the email from Clooney read, according to The Daily Beast.

Good man Clooney, hope this happens.

IvaBigWun

[The hack was evidently so extensive that even the company gym had to shut down.

Why woulð you close down a gym after a hack?

DoYouEvenLift

IvaBigWun wrote: »

Why woulð you close down a gym after a hack?

to stop the execs shower shenanigans getting out I'd say

Antar Bolaeisk

This is far more entertaining than most of the films they've releases recently. Some of the internal email comments regarding The Interview would seem to be funnier than the film itself.

Soft Falling Rain

I see Aaron Sorkin is in trouble now over a leaked e-mail claiming women have less difficult roles. TBF to him I think all he was saying was that there's a major lack of quality scripts available with excellent female roles.

Then again, I've watched The Newsroom and going by how he writes women to be all melodramatic and high maintenance, maybe he is a bit of a dinosaur. I also don't think he helps with his comment about Jennifer Lawrence merely doing a "professional" job in Silver Linings Playbook.

Theboinkmaster

Soft Falling Rain wrote: »

Then again, I've watched The Newsroom and going by how he writes women to be all melodramatic and high maintenance, maybe he is a bit of a dinosaur. I also don't think he helps with his comment about Jennifer Lawrence merely doing a "professional" job in Silver Linings Playbook.

Not sure about that what about CJ Craig and other WW female characters like Abi Bartlet etc...

MisterAnarchy

Nice to see Sony get a bit of payback after their heavy handed treatment of the PS3 jailbreak guys.

SouthTippBass

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Nice to see Sony get a bit of payback after their heavy handed treatment of the PS3 jailbreak guys.

I missed that, what happened to the PS3 jailbreak guys?

livEwirE

I thought this deserved it's own thread.

Hack reveals 20 movies Sony will release from now through 2017

Looks like some interesting future releases :D:D

From https://bgr.com/2014/12/16/sony-hack-2016-and-2017-movie-titles/

Sony has recently been the target of one of the most important hacks in history, at least considering the amount of data that was stolen in the heist. And now, of course, that data is all slowly being published online. The hackers who hit Sony have already leaked a list of unreleased Sony movies, making them available for download, and several other data dumps containing personal details for Sony employees and various celebrities, email exchanges between top Sony execs, and even plans for the future.

FROM EARLIER: Sony hackers may have stolen the newest James Bond script

In addition to scripts for some upcoming projects, including the upcoming James Bond movie, hackers have also found more details about 2016 and 2017 movies, with Business Insider listing some of them, as found in the leaked inbox of Sony Pictures cochair Amy Pascal.

The company plans several interesting titles for the following years, including Uncharted, Ghostbusters, Angry Birds — the full list follows below, as listed by the publication:

2016

Uncharted [The popular Naughty Dog video game adaptation.]
Sinister [most likely referring to “Spider-Man” spin-off “Sinister Six”]

Ghostbusters (or 2017)
Angry Birds [set for July 1 release]
Mib/jump street (2017) [crossover movie between “Men in Black” and “Jump Street”]
Greyman [based on Mark Greaney’s novel “The Gray Man”]
Winters knight
Fifth wave [adaptation of Rick Yancey book “The 5th Wave”]
Inferno [adaptation of Dan Brown’s most recent book in “The Da Vinci Code” series]
Billy Lynn [adaption of Ben Fountain’s novel “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk”]
Baby driver [movie Edgar Wright is working on]
Little woman [remake]

2017

Cleopatra [potential Angelina Jolie movie]
SPIDERMAN [not clear whether this is a spin-off or new movie all together]
DJANGO zorro
Bond
Ghostbusters
Jump street
Monkeys [unclear what this is]
Girl team up [unclear what this is]

A different email has also revealed additional titles that might be planned for next years, including the second part of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, Grown Ups 3, sequels to Hotel Transylvania, Angelina Jolie’s Salt movie and Denzel Washington’s The Equalizer, and a third Smurfs movie.

Liam O

I'd love to jump in and say an MIB/Jump Street movie would be disastrous but I'm actually insanely curious to see it probably a misrepresentation of what it actually means though.

johnny_ultimate

Remakes, sequels, adaptations, crossovers - sadly, 'interesting' is not the word I'd necessarily use to describe that potential line-up

DoYouEvenLift

Liam O wrote: »

I'd love to jump in and say an MIB/Jump Street movie would be disastrous but I'm actually insanely curious to see it probably a misrepresentation of what it actually means though.

Nah they actually have talked about doing that crossover and I think both Jonah hill and Channing Tatum thought it'd be good. I think it could be fun as long as it's kept to being as explicit as the jump street movies have been and not reduced to being some PG 12s piece of sh!t. Men in black is a wacky comedy and so is jump street so they could be blended together well, especially if the writers make it totally self aware like they did in 22 jump street

pixelburp

This whole event has taken a much more farcical, but somewhat sinister turn: the same hacking group that leaked the Sony details also used pretty violence rhetoric against any cinema that screened The Interview, the Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy about assassinating Kim Jong Un. Whether the threats are valid or not, the top American cinema chains all folded in a flash, deciding not to run the film.

http://www.avclub.com/article/major-theater-chains-drop-interview-following-terr-213141

Ordinarily, the prospect of a Seth Rogan comedy being pulled from cinemas wouldn't make me bat an eyebrow, but this all seems like a situation spiralling out of control / credulity

Thargor

The feds will have their asses for this, bet we see arrests in 2015, unless it is North Korea doing it, which it must be because honestly who would go to this much trouble over a Seth Rogan film?

DoYouEvenLift

Well, I guess that debunks the few people who thought this was all possibly some grand marketing scheme by Sony for the movie lol

pixelburp

Thargor wrote: »

The feds will have their asses for this, bet we see arrests in 2015, unless it is North Korea doing it, which it must be because honestly who would go to this much trouble over a Seth Rogan film?

It seems it's all still speculation and conjecture that North Korea are actually involved; I'd wonder if it's more likely to be a set of Anonymous wannabes, maybe paid by North Korean third-parties, who knows. Seems like a pretty baffling scenario either way and I'm genuinely surprised how quickly and unified the cinema chains' response was - I wonder if they received guidance from the FBI to treat the threat as serious?

Thargor

Release of The Interview has been completely scrapped now:

http://deadline.com/2014/12/sony-scraps-the-interview-1201328639/

Goldstein

How long now until another movie offends a different bunch of nut jobs? Sony's capitulation has set a very dangerous precedent.

MagicMarker

If legitimate threats of violence have been made then Sony would be stupid to go ahead with the release.

Well the trailer for it looked rubbish and I felt the movie's premise was in poor taste. The world has enough problems without aggravating an already unstable despot. Kim Jong Un doesn't look the type to take a joke to be honest!

GarIT

Thargor wrote: »

Release of The Interview has been completely scrapped now:

http://deadline.com/2014/12/sony-scraps-the-interview-1201328639/

That's really disappointing, I was really looking forward to it after all the hype.

Thargor

Goldstein wrote: »

How long now until another movie offends a different bunch of nut jobs? Sony's capitulation has set a very dangerous precedent.

MagicMarker wrote: »

If legitimate threats of violence have been made then Sony would be stupid to go ahead with the release.

Of course it could also mean the hackers found an absolute gold nugget in that 40 TB of data and blackmailed Sony with it.

S. Goodspeed

Plot of the film really was in awful taste. Pulling the release should not set too much of a precedence as I (thankfully) can't see too many more films depicting the assassination of a sitting world leader being made anytime soon.

If Sony really wants the last laugh they should just formally release the film online for free and try to make sure even more people watch it than would have if was just released without all this messing around. Sure they will miss out on the revenue but sometimes you just have to take the hit (plus it doesn't look like it would have been a massive box office hit anyway)

expectationlost

is Sony not going to stand up for film its makes, did it not think it would cause trouble /threats, i doubt this is the first film or piece of media the imagined the assassination of a world leader (altough I wonder what actually happens in the film), i presume it satirises america as much as or more then it does north korea.

team america world police?? Death of a President http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0853096/combined was a future look back at the killing of President bush while he was in office.

Goldstein

This isn't about this one throwaway film. It's about the next one that "offends" the thin skinned ones and the one after that. They've showed how easily the studios can be manipulated into censorship when their movies feature any topic at all deemed undesirable or offensive to anyone crazy enough to issue threats.

As for the theory that it was pulled to appease the "hackers" and prevent even more damaging data from being leaked I don't think the Sony execs would be naive enough to believe that information won't get leaked anyway regardless of what they do.

The damage is done to them now. Releasing it online for free would be a ballsy move but it'll never happen. Either that or fast track it onto blu-Ray and watch it hit no. 1 all over the world as a fairly predictable protest vote.

expectationlost

if sony didn't do enough to protect its staff and more stuff is released on them?

cloudatlas

Well the hackers missed the boat as there's already a very irreverent film about North Korea it's called 'Team America'. :pac:

Goldstein

I can't wait for the next South Park

Tweet from Rob Lowe:

Saw @Sethrogen at JFK. Both of us have never seen or heard of anything like this. Hollywood has done Neville Chamberlain proud today.

Congrats Sony, following what might be considered the first (public) cyber skirmish they have secured peace in our time.

Standman

Can't believe how easily everybody folded to what seem like obvious empty manipulative threats. How about these cinema chains and studios have a bit of backbone for once? Stand up for the ideals that allowed you to get so damn successful in the first place.

Not a big fan of Rogen, but if I was living in the states I would have made a point of going to see it just for the principle of it.

McSasquatch II

You had me at Girl team up.

The Black Oil

I forget who said it, but 'they sure can document a **** up in a hurry' fits.

pixelburp

I have to laugh at some of the media outlets reporting this, specifically their comments sections and their usual collection of contrarians and conspiracy theorists, all speculating that of course this is all just some great marketing ploy by Sony. As if all the private employee data and general sh*tstorm they find themselves in is a cunning wheeze to get more marketing for The Interview.

All that said, I am damn curious now to see the film; not because it ever looked any good - if anything it seemed like more evidence that nobody's actually trying to make vaguely intelligent comedy anymore - but simply because I don't believe hackers / North Koreans should have any say on how or where we enjoy the freedom of cinema.

Thargor wrote: »

Of course it could also mean the hackers found an absolute gold nugget in that 40 TB of data and blackmailed Sony with it.

That might be the case, but the first shot was fired by the cinema chains, all voluntarily deciding not to run the film. Whether or not there was any dirt on Sony would have surely had no affect on the cinemas' decision.

cloudatlas

Well if it does come out then it'll have had some of the best publicity of any film for as far as I can remember. Controversy aside I actually liked the trailer and was looking forward to a good year end comedy as there have been so few this year.

Harry Palmr

Dreadful precedent even The Last Temptation of Christ was released and there were some seriously crazy people after Marty et al back then.

Sony can only do one thing now to restore some pride and that's leak the film once its out there it'll spread like wildfire and North Korea won't know who to threaten as it'll be "everyone's" film.

DoYouEvenLift

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Dreadful precedent even The Last Temptation of Christ was released and there were some seriously crazy people after Marty et al back then.

Sony can only do one thing now to restore some pride and that's leak the film once its out there it'll spread like wildfire and North Korea won't know who to threaten as it'll be "everyone's" film.

They might try to get it launched on as many video on demand services as possible and also screen it at whatever cinemas will show it. At this point I imagine they're just gonna be trying to lower the loss of money as much as possible. I'd actually like to see this movie do well money wise as a big "fuk you" to the hackers so it lessens the chance of other pricks trying to get movies removed from cinemas in the future.

the_syco

IvaBigWun wrote: »

Why woulð you close down a gym after a hack?

I'm guessing there's either a WiFi access point there, or a couple of ethernet ports that are not on camera. When you don't know where the hack is coming from, you shut down every possible angle.

pixelburp wrote: »

Ordinarily, the prospect of a Seth Rogan comedy being pulled from cinemas wouldn't make me bat an eyebrow, but this all seems like a situation spiralling out of control / credulity

I see the NK connection as smoke n mirrors, to throw off the real reason of the hack.

=-=

Seems the DVD release of "Fury" that has appeared on the internets was from this hack.

=-=

When you consider a full (untouched) BluRay movie is about 40GB's, I wonder how many movies that 2TB's consists of? Its as if the 40GB's of text is all the text, and the rest is movies. If done correctly, the people who grabbed the movies could make some money by releasing pirate BluRay copies when the various films hit the cinemas?

=-=

I think threatening "9/11 on cinemas" may have what caused a few of the cinemas to decide not to show it. As said, it wouldn't be a box-office hit, so most cinemas probably looked at how much they'd gain, versus how much they stood to lose, and decided to just not show it.

DoYouEvenLift

the_syco wrote: »

I'm guessing there's either a WiFi access point there, or a couple of ethernet ports that are not on camera. When you don't know where the hack is coming from, you shut down every possible angle.


I see the NK connection as smoke n mirrors, to throw off the real reason of the hack.

=-=

Seems the DVD release of "Fury" that has appeared on the internets was from this hack.

=-=

When you consider a full (untouched) BluRay movie is about 40GB's, I wonder how many movies that 2TB's consists of? Its as if the 40GB's of text is all the text, and the rest is movies. If done correctly, the people who grabbed the movies could make some money by releasing pirate BluRay copies when the various films hit the cinemas?

=-=

I think threatening "9/11 on cinemas" may have what caused a few of the cinemas to decide not to show it. As said, it wouldn't be a box-office hit, so most cinemas probably looked at how much they'd gain, versus how much they stood to lose, and decided to just not show it.

There was way more than 2TB taken I thought? Last I heard it was almost 100TB

FloatingVoter

It'll leak. Screener season is beginning and while this was no award hopeful it'll slip out just like all the others do every year. Even more likely given that copies will have been distributed to mainstream news channels as well as industry insiders.
As for North Korea being behind this - they are nuts but getting upset over a Z movie is of no benefit to them. Sony had to pull the flick on the 1% chance that there was a serious threat. 99% odds say this is just yet more little anonymous wannabes.

DoYouEvenLift

FloatingVoter wrote: »

It'll leak. Screener season is beginning and while this was no award hopeful it'll slip out just like all the others do every year. Even more likely given that copies will have been distributed to mainstream news channels as well as industry insiders.
As for North Korea being behind this - they are nuts but getting upset over a Z movie is of no benefit to them. Sony had to pull the flick on the 1% chance that there was a serious threat. 99% odds say this is just yet more little anonymous wannabes.

I wonder will people who pirate movies ever get at least 720p copies of award screeners. Surely the people who actually receive the screeners don't use regular DVDs anymore and use blurays now

FloatingVoter

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

I wonder will people who pirate movies ever get at least 720p copies of award screeners. Surely the people who actually receive the screeners don't use regular DVDs anymore and use blurays now

Screeners are often viewed legitimately by voters while they sit hunched over a laptop in the Atacama desert on location. They're rarely bluray quality although the Hobbit 3 probably will be due to it being an effects movie.
The Interview will probably be a crap movie whatever resolution its viewed in. I'll still buy the popcorn and lift the movie.

expectationlost

FloatingVoter wrote: »

It'll leak. Screener season is beginning and while this was no award hopeful it'll slip out just like all the others do every year. Even more likely given that copies will have been distributed to mainstream news channels as well as industry insiders.
As for North Korea being behind this - they are nuts but getting upset over a Z movie is of no benefit to them. Sony had to pull the flick on the 1% chance that there was a serious threat. 99% odds say this is just yet more little anonymous wannabes.

Sony hasn't come against threats to its films before?

expectationlost

Sony said they are not goimg to release it in any format.

Goldstein

aaaaaand death scene leaked.