{"id":51552,"date":"2014-12-23T18:12:03","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T18:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=51552"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:27:08","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:27:08","slug":"sony-hack-clooney-says-movie-is-about-snowden-not-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/12\/sony-hack-clooney-says-movie-is-about-snowden-not-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony Hack: Clooney Says Movie is about Snowden, Not Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:<\/a>

Photo: Sunshinepress\/Getty<\/p><\/div>\n

22 Dec 2014 – <\/em>As curious journalists, tabloid writers, and Hollywood watchers pore over the massive trove of hacked Sony data, the public is being given a rare\u00a0glimpse\u00a0into the complicated world of Hollywood and politics. Tucked between bitchy emails about Angelina Jolie and snarky comments on Will Smith\u2019s family are details of\u00a0a\u00a0chummy relationship between Sony executives and the CIA<\/a>, as well as rare insight into how Hollywood views potential movies about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.<\/p>\n

Sony\u2019s plan to make a Snowden movie got rolling in January 2014, when\u00a0Elizabeth Cantillon<\/a>, then an executive producer at Sony, sent company Co-Chairman\u00a0Amy Pascal<\/a>\u00a0an email saying she had successfully closed on the rights to the book, \u201cNo Place to Hide,\u201d by\u00a0The Intercept<\/em>\u2018s founding editor,\u00a0Glenn Greenwald. \u00a0\u201c[Y]ou will be my Oscar date,\u201d\u00a0Cantillon promised Pascal.<\/p>\n

In March of 2014, Sony officially optioned the rights to Greenwald\u2019s book, which chronicles how he broke the Snowden story, and moved forward with plans for a movie.<\/p>\n

A month later, Pascal sent an email\u00a0to a fellow Sony executive with the \u201cfabulous slate\u201d of tentative\u00a0movie releases. The \u201cSnowden movie\u201d would be scheduled for 2016, between Pineapple Express 2<\/em> and the comic book film\u00a0Bloodshot.<\/em>\u00a0Greenwald\u2019s agreement with Sony gave him \u201ccreative input\u201d and \u201cfinal approval\u201d on the press release for the movie.<\/p>\n

A draft of the release was sent to a senior executive in Sony\u2019s Government Affairs office, Keith Weaver, who offered a few \u201cconcerns\/edits\u201d before they were sent to Greenwald. Weaver was concerned about how Sony described U.S. government spying. Weaver wrote:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. In the first sentence of the second paragraph \u2013 delete the phrase \u201cillegal spying\u201d and either it [sic] simply as \u201coperations\u201d or replace it with \u201cintelligence gathering\u201d \u2014 so the clause would read \u201cU.S. government\u2019s intelligence gathering operations.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. In the second sentence of the second paragraph \u2014 delete the \u201cphrase misuse of power\u201d and replace it with \u201cactions\u201d or \u201cactivities\u201d so that it would read \u201cThe NSA\u2019s actions\u201d or \u201cthe NSA\u2019S activities.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Weaver was also concerned about how the draft quoted Greenwald as saying, \u201cGrowing up, I was heavily influenced by political films, and am excited about the opportunity to be a part of a political film that will resonate with today\u2019s moviegoers.\u201d Weaver, who would go on to be a key figure in the damage control team on Sony\u2019s The Interview<\/em>, wondered in the same email whether Sony wanted Greenwald to describe it as a \u201cpolitical film.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cThat\u2019s really more of PR point so up to you guys \u2014 and I suspect since it is his own quote Greeenwald will feel strongly,\u201d the Sony executive wrote.<\/p>\n

    The final version of the press release<\/a>\u00a0took Weaver\u2019s suggestions on toning down the language on NSA, but let Greenwald\u2019s quote stand (Greenwald, when asked about the emails, says he was \u201cunaware, but am not surprised, that an internal Sony lobbyist diluted the press release draft in order to avoid upsetting the government.\u201d)<\/p>\n

    By June, however, Sony\u2019s plans hit a roadbump when a rival Snowden movie production was announced.\u00a0\u00a0Oliver Stone and his long-time producing partner Mortiz Borman acquired the rights to Luke Harding\u2019s \u201cThe Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World\u2019s Most Wanted Man\u201d and\u00a0\u00a0\u201cTime of the Octopus,\u201d a novel written by Snowden\u2019s former\u00a0lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena.<\/p>\n

    \u201c[N]ow what?\u201d Pascal asked Cantillon.<\/p>\n

    Cantillon tried to calm Pascal by comparing the competing projects to the race to make the Steve Jobs biopic. While Sony was squabbling<\/a> over directors and lead actors, three independent production companies plowed ahead with Ashton Kutcher in the titular role.<\/p>\n

    \u201coliver stone is not aston kutcher [sic],\u201d Pascal responded.<\/p>\n

    Pascal then reached out to \u201cson of a news man<\/a>\u201d George Clooney, who replied that he\u00a0had read Greenwald\u2019s book:<\/p>\n

    I went through it and circled all the great moments that would make it a film. Grant and I both wanted so badly for this to be our next film. But if you use his book\u2026. The best story is snowdon [sic]\u2026Not journalism. And that story is already being made into a movie. And a few documentaries. Stone will do a hatchet job on the movie but it will still be the film of Snowdon\u2026.and even if we made a kick ass version it would be using all the same story points\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

    It honestly kills us that we can\u2019t do this story\u2026but we can\u2019t. I\u2019m with Grant right now in Big Sur and we talked through it for days. We just can\u2019t<\/em><\/p>\n

    I\u2019m really bummed. We\u2019ll find something. Please don\u2019t stop looking for us.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Xxg<\/em><\/p>\n

    Over the spring and summer, Sony worked on its Snowden script, but in November, Stone\u2019s version of the Snowden story was picked up by Open Road as a distributor (Open Road is owned by AMC theaters and Regal Entrainment). Adding insult to the injury, Sony was pitched on distributing the Stone movie to foreign territories. Steven Bersch, head of Sony\u2019s Worldwide Acquisitions, wrote to Pascal and fellow executive Doug Belgrad<\/a>\u00a0asking whether he should bid, given that the company was considering its own project.<\/p>\n

    Belgrad finally conceded defeat. \u201cThis will beat our Snowden project to market and therefore ours is unlikely to happen,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWe ended up passing after seriously considering the project.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Greenwald, however, says he believes the movie is still going forward, and Sony is sending a screenwriter to Brazil to meet with him in January.<\/p>\n

    As for any difficulties of working with Sony, Greenwald says the benefits of working with a large studio like Sony \u201cis that a message can reach huge numbers of people who don\u2019t read political discussions and thus shape how an entire generation thinks \u2013 as \u2018All the Presidents Men\u2019 did.\u201d<\/p>\n

    For now, Greenwald remains hopeful. \u201cI assume the battles with fearful, pro-government Sony executives will come later,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

    ___________________________________<\/p>\n

    Micah Lee and Ryan Gallagher contributed to the analysis of this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Email the author: natashavc@theintercept.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

    Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    22 Dec 2014 – As curious journalists, tabloid writers, and Hollywood watchers pore over the massive trove of hacked Sony data, the public is being given a rare glimpse into the complicated world of Hollywood and politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}