Sony Corp. (SNE) Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai personally approved scenes in “The Interview,” the Seth Rogen film that angered North Korea and may have prompted a cyber attack on the company’s Hollywood film studio, according to e-mails made public by the hackers.

In messages to Sony Pictures Entertainment Co-Chairman Amy Pascal, Hirai gave input and ultimately the go-ahead to a toned-down scene depicting the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and he asked the studio executive to make sure the filmmakers didn’t include Kim’s exploding face in versions released outside the U.S.

“I’ve given this a lot of thought and would like to go ahead with a variation of version 337,” Hirai wrote in a Sept. 29 e-mail to Pascal. “It would be much appreciated if you could push them a bit further as you mentioned in your e-mail. Also, please ensure that this does not make it into the international version of the release.”

The exchange with Pascal, who runs the company’s film unit, highlights the unusual scrutiny senior Sony executives gave the comedy, about a CIA attempt to assassinate Kim. It also shows how Pascal worked to balance internal demands with those of the filmmakers in trying to get “The Interview” approved for release.

In an e-mail to Rogen, Pascal said she’d never before received input on a film from Sony’s Tokyo headquarters. She asked Rogen, the movie’s star, co-producer and co-director, to to accept changes requested by the studio.

Read also: Sony Hackers Demand ‘The Interview’ Be Canceled – or Else 

Tokyo’s Request

“As embarrassing as this has been from my point of view, you have to appreciate the fact that we haven’t just dictated to you what it had to be,” Pascal said in a Sept. 25 e-mail to Rogen. “Given that I have never gotten one note on anything from our parent company in the entire 25 years that I have worked for them.”

Sony in Tokyo declined to make Hirai available to comment on his involvement in the film. A spokeswoman for Sony Pictures in Culver City, California, declined to comment on Pascal’s behalf. Through a spokesman, Rogen declined to comment.

The e-mails are included in about 33,000 documents stolen from Sony’s computer system and uploaded to the Internet in a devastating cyber attack. The data include salary spreadsheets for 6,700 employees of Sony Pictures and Social Security numbers of celebrities.

Melting Face

Pascal and other Sony film executives asked Rogen to remove some of the gore from the the scene in which Kim dies in a slow-motion fireball. The aim of the cuts was to emphasize the comedic nature of the film and depict the scene in a more cartoonish light.

“In shot #337 there is no face melting, less fire in the hair, fewer embers on the face, and the head explosion has been considerably obscured by the fire, as well as darkened to look less like flesh,” Pascal wrote to Hirai on Sept. 28. “We arrived at this shot (#337) after much cajoling and resistance from the filmmakers.”

The movie has drawn scorn from North Korean officials, who called it an “act of war” and in June promised to “mercilessly destroy” anyone who had a hand in making it.

The hackers were linked by Sony investigators to a group associated with North Korea, people with knowledge of the matter said last week. Many cybersecurity experts say the episode bears the hallmarks of DarkSeoul, a hacking group with suspected links to North Korea that struck South Korean banks and media companies in 2013.

‘Incredible Annoyance’

North Korea, which has denied any involvement in the Sony episode, released a statement this month saying the hack “might be a righteous deed” of its supporters or sympathizers.

Hirai in the e-mails seen didn’t mention the possibility of provoking retaliation from North Korea. Executives including Michael Lynton, chief executive officer of Sony Entertainment, and Nicole Seligman, who is president of Sony Corp. (6758) of America, shared published reports on North Korea’s relationship with Japan. Seligman didn’t respond requests for comment.

“I haven’t the foggiest notion how to deal with Japanese politics as it relates to Korea so all I can do is make sure that Sony won’t be put in a bad situation and even that is subjective,” Pascal wrote to Rogen on Sept. 25 while asking for him to tone down the gore.

‘On Sword’

Pascal voiced support for Rogen and highlighted her efforts to keep “The Interview” moving forward as executives raised questions and North Korea spoke out against the movie.

“I’m not taking no for an answer,” Pascal wrote. “If I was prepared to do that, we would have been done a long time ago… I would have done the easy thing and shut this down but I haven’t, much to everyone’s incredible annoyance here.”

“The Interview” is scheduled to open on Dec. 25. The film stars Rogen and James Franco as producer and host, respectively, of “Skylark Tonight,” a celebrity tabloid show. The two find out Kim is a fan and land an interview they hope will build their journalistic credentials. The CIA then recruits them to kill the North Korean leader.

The Sony e-mails reveals how the executives weighed the risks of making the “The Interview.” As far back as July, executives focused on the scene in which Kim is killed.

“In the interest of getting this approved, I would still like to see them eliminate the tendril of flesh on the left side of his forehead that comes just before the fireball,” Doug Belgrad, president of Sony Pictures Entertainment motion picture group, said in a July 19 e-mail to Pascal.

Belgrad didn’t respond to a telephone request for comment.

In response, Pascal presses Belgrad to negotiate the changes with the filmmakers.

“I don’t feel like falling on my sword for this one,” she added. “No other studio would even touch this movie and we all know it.”

 

Source: Bloomberg – Sony CEO Cleared Scenes in Film on North Korea, E-Mails Show

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