Despite being a “dumb comedy,” George Clooney still thinks “The Interview” should be released into theaters, and he’s being joined by some unlikely allies.
“Here, we’re talking about an actual country deciding what content we’re going to have. This affects not just movies, this affects every part of business that we have,” Clooney said in an interview with Deadline Thursday on the decision to pull the Dec. 25 film.
“That’s the truth. What happens if a newsroom decides to go with a story, and a country or an individual or corporation decides they don’t like it? Forget the hacking part of it,” he said.
Sony Pictures pulled the Seth Rogen and James Franco flick about their assassination of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un after hackers leaked internal emails and threatened the theaters with terrorist attacks should they play the movie.
“Then, to turn around and threaten to blow people up and kill people, and just by that threat alone we change what we do for a living, that’s the actual definition of terrorism,” he added, saying there is still enough time to take a stand to Sony.
U.S. officials confirmed this week that the hackers were North Korean.
The Oscar winner said he also brought forward a petition to Hollywood, and not one person would sign it.
“I don’t know what the answer is, but what happened here is part of a much larger deal,” Clooney said. “A huge deal. And people are still talking about dumb emails. Understand what is going on right now, because the world just changed on your watch, and you weren’t even paying attention.”
Clooney added, “We cannot be told we can’t see something by Kim Jong-un, of all f—king people.”
The 53-year-old actor wasn’t entirely alone in support, however.
President Obama on Friday said Sony Pictures “made a mistake” in canceling the release of the satirical film.
“Imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary they don’t like or news reports they don’t like,” he said. “That’s not who we are.”
Karl Rove, conservative pundit and former Deputy Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, tweeted Friday: “Usually don’t find common ground w/ a liberal actor, but on how Hollywood shld answer Sony hack, I #StandwithClooney.”
Details on the movie’s next steps, whether it will be released to online streaming or DVD, are still in the works.
