When a group claiming credit for the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment threatened violence against theaters showing “The Interview,” the fate of the movie’s big-screen life was all but sealed, thanks to the still-fresh memories of 2012’s theater massacre in Aurora.
Even though law enforcement didn’t deem the threats of violence credible at the time, theater owners and Sony undoubtedly considered the Colorado attack. That attack , which killed a dozen people, came without warning, and there was no precedent for such mass violence against a U.S. movie audience.
Yet the theater’s owners still face 20 lawsuits, with survivors and victims’ families contending that more should have been done to protect those who went to see a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Cinemark Holdings, Inc., argues it could not have foreseen the mass shooting, but experts say the same argument couldn’t be used if violence broke out at a showing of “The Interview.”
“It wasn’t worth the risk,” said Eric Wold, a movie exhibitor analyst with B. Riley & Co.
The big theater chains — Cinemark, AMC and Regal Entertainment Group — quickly pulled the film. Denver investor Philip Anschutz owns 37 percent of Knoxville, Tenn.-based Regal.
It was only a matter of hours after hackers threatened massive violence against any theater showing “The Interview” that exhibitors started dropping the film.
In an August ruling rejecting a motion by Cinemark to throw out the Aurora victims’ lawsuits, U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote that whether the company could have been expected to deploy extra security without a threat against its theaters “is not an easy question to answer.”
