Not content to simply make movies and pull them when some North Korean crackpot gets angry, Hollywood is now cancelling potentially offensive movies before they're even made. Steve Carell (The Office) was set to star in a North Korea-set thriller to be directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirate of the Caribbean.) Now, the entire picture has been scuttled due to concerns about how Kim Jong Un's regime will react.
Via
Deadline Hollywood:
The chilling effect of the Sony Pictures hack and threats against
The Interview are reverberating.
New Regency has scrapped another project that was to be set in
North Korea. The untitled thriller, set up in October, was being developed by director Gore Verbinski as a star vehicle for
Foxcatcher star Steve Carell. The paranoid thriller written by Steve Conrad was going to start production in March. Insiders tell me that under the current circumstances, it just makes no sense to move forward. The location won’t be transplanted. Fox declined to distribute it, per a spokesman.
Verbinski and Carell are big names and millionaires many times over. This will sting, but they'll move on to other jobs and they'll be fine. However, if you're one of the thousands of lower-level employees who was set to work on this movie, you've just lost a substantial paycheck thanks to what North Korea
might - or might not - have done.
That means that the Norks' strategy in dealing with "The Interview" has succeeded, probably beyond their wildest dreams.
For an industry that's constantly carping about its deep, abiding, love of the 1st Amendment, this is an awfully shallow move. How many times have we heard them tell offended U.S. citizens that their films - no matter how violent, sleazy, or anti-American - are "art" and should be free of censorship and prior restraint?
It may be tough to sympathize with the irritating leftists who populate the film industry but, frankly, their 1st Amendment stance is an argument with which we should agree. As long as they're not hurting anyone, they
should be free to make whatever they want and we're free to pay for it or ignore it as we see fit.
How very unfortunate that the minute they're faced with a challenge from a sociopathic tin-pot dictator, they cave completely.
Their cowardice is on full display.
