If Sony Pictures won’t release its shelved comedy, “The Interview,” the studio should give the film to Congress, said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.).
“We would want to screen it right here there in the Rayburn Building across the street from the Capitol,” Sherman said in an interview on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”
{mosads}Sony decided to cancel the film’s Christmas Day release after hackers threatened Sept. 11-style attacks on any theater that screened the movie, which depicts the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“What’s important,” Sherman added, is “that we demonstrate to the world that we’ll go see this movie, even if it’s sophomoric.”
The FBI on Friday accused North Korea of being behind both an initial cyber theft of Sony’s internal documents and the violent threats following the hack. The White House has promised to respond “proportionally.”
“If anything happens in the United States, it is the North Korean government and that is hitting Americans on American soil,” Sherman said. “The last outfit that did that was Osama Bin Laden and he is on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.”
It’s now the government’s responsibility to allocate security resources for movie theaters around the country so they feel safe releasing “The Interview,” said Sherman, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee.
“It should reach the public through all the pipes,” he said. “Just perhaps a month later.”
In a Friday statement, Sony clarified their plans for the film.
“Let us be clear — the only decision that we have made with respect to release of the film was not to release it on Christmas Day in theaters, after the theater owners declined to show it,” Sony said.
“After that decision, we immediately began actively surveying alternatives to enable us to release the movie on a different platform,” the studio added. “It is still our hope that anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so.”
Sherman was more direct.
“We’re not going to be deprived of a good or a bad movie.”