The Big Picture · Discussion
August 21, 2024/ 47 min/ Brian Raftery
Chapter 2 of Brian Raftery's 'The Hollywood Hack' opens on the December 2014 Sony leak as it spills into public view. Sony's Marisa McGrath-Liston and Michael Fisk describe promoting 'Annie' and shipping 'The Interview' while a hacker email threatened employees' families and their Social Security numbers sold on the dark web for $25. Then the emails: Amy Pascal and Scott Rudin's months-long fight over an Angelina Jolie 'Cleopatra,' Rudin's 'minimally talented spoiled brat' line, the Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams pay-gap revelations, and the Obama emails that pulled in Al Sharpton. Ben Fritz and journalists Matt Belloni and Andrew Wallenstein walk through what the leaked documents showed about how movies get made and killed, like a long-developed Alf film.
20 films across 5 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
The two movies Sony had to release anywaythe hack didn't stop the schedule
Sony's holiday family remake of the musical, with Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx. Publicity exec Marisa McGrath-Liston was in New York promoting it, flying in 50-plus journalists, the week the hack turned personal. An unreleased copy of the film had already leaked in the data dump.
The Rogen-Franco comedy about assassinating Kim Jong-un, the film North Korea had denounced as 'an act of war' before the hack was even discovered. Sony held a subdued, heavily secured premiere at LA's Ace Hotel on December 11, then hosted with a Randall Park cardboard cutout, before a threat invoking 9/11 shut the press tour down.
The leaked slides and complaintsthe low-value stuff that leaked first
A leaked Sony research slide warned the poverty-and-overpopulation sci-fi drama should 'avoid sociopolitical themes.'
One slide suggested a 'cool internet meme' to promote Adam Sandler's sequel; the leaked internal complaints griped about being 'saddled with mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films.'
The most-quoted slide: '58% of teens described the Smurfs' language as funny.' The franchise later became the model executives kept invoking as they debated a possible Alf movie.
Pascal, Rudin, and the emailsthe fight that made the headlines
The Elizabeth Taylor epic name-checked as the reference point for the new Cleopatra Sony was developing: an Angelina Jolie vehicle produced by Scott Rudin. The months-long Pascal-Rudin argument over its script, budget, and even Jolie's hairstyle filled the leaked emails, and produced Rudin's 'minimally talented spoiled brat' line.
A Rudin-Pascal collaboration; he thanked her by name accepting his 2012 Golden Globe for it. Also the Aaron Sorkin credit the podcast notes for the irony: he wrote a movie about the internet, then called the outlets publishing the emails 'morally treasonous.'
Cited among the Rudin-Pascal hits still under their Sony deal in 2014.
Listed as part of Rudin's 'impeccable IMDb.'
Another entry in Rudin's résumé of decades of hits.
Cited among Rudin's credits.
The Oscar winner rounding out Rudin's list of hits.
Sorkin's screenplay almost got made at Sony; it fell apart amid the Pascal-Rudin arguments that then leaked in the hack, and the film moved to Universal.
What the emails revealed about the movieshow films get made, and killed
The Daily Beast found Jennifer Lawrence's back-end pay was less than her male co-stars'; Amy Adams, a four-time Oscar nominee, also got less. The revelation fed a wider pay-equity conversation that ran through Patricia Arquette's 2015 Oscar speech and Lawrence's Lenny essay.
Ben Fritz's favorite find was the marketing memo laying out how to hide that M. Night Shyamalan directed it and that Will Smith 'isn't really in this movie.' Sony spent over $130 million on it.
The New York Times found emails showing 'unflattering moments' for the NFL were cut from an early script of the Will Smith drama, with a lawyer taking out 'most of the bite.'
The letdown that had Sony scrambling to fix its franchise; the leaked documents held a Sony-Marvel agreement requiring Peter Parker to be white and straight, plus early talk of bringing Spider-Man into the MCU.
The Obama emailsthe exchange that pulled in Al Sharpton
Ahead of an Obama breakfast, Pascal emailed Rudin guessing the president liked films with Black leads: 'Should I ask him if he liked Django?' BuzzFeed's publication of the exchange drew a rebuke from Zoe Saldana and a sit-down with Al Sharpton.
Another title Pascal floated in the same Obama email.
The third film Pascal named, before Rudin replied, 'I bet he likes Kevin Hart.'
Also mentioned raised along the way
The crossover Jonah Hill loved Men in Black21 Jump Street
The franchises Sony was chasing TransformersStar Wars
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV ALFSaturday Night LiveThe Tonight ShowThe Late Show
Unmade Cleopatra (Angelina Jolie / Scott Rudin project)Candyland (Adam Sandler)AlfMen in Black / Jump Street crossover
Podcasts The Hollywood HackThe Wedding ScammerAmerican ScandalDo We Get to Win This Time?The Town
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