George Clooney saw his industry under attack and thought the best response was to ban together against the formidable opponent creating mayhem at Sony Pictures Entertainment. He and his agent, Bryan Lourd of CAA, stood alone in their principles.
Prior to Sony pulling the release of "The Interview," Clooney wrote up a petition supporting Sony and its "decision not to submit to these hackers' demands," according to Deadline. He and Lourd sent the petition to a large number of company heads in the entertainment industry, but no one would sign it.
"Nobody wanted to be the first to sign on," Clooney told Deadline. "This is just where we are right now, how scared this industry has been made... I don't what the answer is, but what happened here is part of a much larger deal. A huge deal. And people are still talking about dumb emails."
The cyber terror organization "Guardians of Peace" hacked into Sony's network on Nov. 24 and started releasing company emails, Social Security numbers, medical records and other personnel items. The GOP also sent out threats to Sony employees and their families as well as any theaters planning to show "The Interview," before its cancellation.
Clooney supported screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's lament about the media's failure to chase the bigger story of North Korea's involvement (now confirmed by the FBI). As the son of a news anchor, he also realized the media is prone to chase the more "salacious" angle of a story.
"It's a drag, and it's lame. But there's not much you can do about it. You can't legislate good taste," he said. "The problem is that what happened was, while all that was going on, there was a huge news story that no one was really tracking."
The Oscar-winning actor's biggest concern is the censorship of content. "The Interview" may have been no more than a silly comedy, but serious films that handle sensitive topics could face serious consequences because of the precedent set by Sony pulling the Seth Rogen and James Franco movie.
"Frankly, I'm at an age where I'm not doing action films or romantic comedies," Clooney said. "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."
Clooney also believes America can't afford to have foreign enemy countries dictating the business of American industries, whether its Hollywood movie studios or the automotive industry.
"We cannot be told we can't see something by Kim Jong-un, of all f***ing people," he said. "We have allowed North Korea to dictate content, and that is just insane."
