Category: media

“One of the tricky things about the show, especially early on, was figuring out what the honest point of view of the show was, and then how to communicate that through the character of Stephen’s contrasting point of view. When you’re working very quickly on complicated stories, that can get hard. It always reminded me of driving in reverse. Usually, we knew our destination, but we had to drive there super-fast and backwards.”

“What it comes down to is that anyone who disseminates the information found in those emails is doing their bit to chip away at free speech.”

“North Korea has denied it was behind the hacking, but security experts in Washington said it was an open secret Pyongyang was responsible.”

Here’s a rundown of what is and isn’t certain, who is affected, and how.

“On Wednesday afternoon, AMC Theaters, citing “the overall confusion and uncertainty” around the film, joined Carmike Cinemas, Cinemark and Regal Entertainment in dropping the film. Together, those exhibitors control more than 19,200 screens across the United States. Smaller American chains and Canada’s Cineplex Entertainment also canceled the film.”

“Rather than being the innocuous form of entertainment they are assumed to be,” writes a research team led by Ian Colman, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Ottawa, “children’s animated films are rife with on-screen death and murder.”

“The threat was made in rambling emails sent to various news outlets Tuesday morning. [One] said, in part: ‘Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)'” Both cinema chains and the studio are in a difficult position, and the New York premiere has already been cancelled.

Rogen: “No one has officially told me our movie, 100 percent, has proven to be the cause of any of this stuff. We’re not the first people to shed light on how crazy North Korea is, the myths that exist there and the oddities of the regime.”

“Far from being simple, wholesome family entertainment, the film is an admiring portrait of a conniving, lying, mercenary seductress. It’s a valentine to the slave-owning South, and a poison-pen letter to the anti-slavery North. … It’s a romance that puts the hero and heroine at each other’s throats. And it’s an episodic coming-of-age story that keeps going for nearly four hours before reaching its abrupt, unresolved ending. In short, Gone with the Wind is a preposterous, almost unclassifiable mix of highly questionable elements. The wonder is not just that it’s America’s most beloved film, but that it isn’t America’s most hated.”

“There was a 34% decrease in spend on first-run UK-originated drama programming, from £487 million in 2008 to £323 million in 2013. UK-originated shows are those commissioned by or for a public service broadcaster, with a view to their first showing being on UK TV.”