Oscar-nominated filmmakers to tackle Sony Pictures cyberattack in upcoming documentary

By Rick Marshall June 3, 2015

sony gets out its check book agrees to pay up 8m settle hack lawsuit pictures — Image used with permission by copyright holder

A documentary about the massive security breach at Sony Pictures late last year is already being developed, and the biggest surprise about the project may be that it’s taken this long for a film about the notorious cyberattack to be announced.

The filmmakers responsible for the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning 2013 documentary The Square (about the then-ongoing Egyptian Revolution) are currently working on a film that chronicles the hack of various Sony Pictures accounts that eventually resulted in co-chairman Amy Pascal vacating her post earlier this year. Director and producer duo (and spouses) Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer are expected to offer some alternate theories regarding the perpetrators of the cyberattack, which was eventually blamed on North Korean hackers due to the country’s outrage over Seth Rogen and James Franco’s political comedy The Interview.

“The Sony story is an important chapter in this larger issue,” Amer told The Hollywood Reporter. “The analysts and experts we speak to see it as the 9/11 of cyberattacks, and the implications will be felt for years to come.”

First detected in late November 2014, the hack of Sony Pictures’ servers had far-reaching effects and extended so deeply into the studio’s information architecture that many still doubt that the blame lies with North Korea alone (or at all). According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amer and Noujaim were already working on a film about the international scope of cyber-warfare and information security when the Sony hack made headlines, offering the pair a logical, well-publicized hook for the film.

However, the outlet reports that representatives for the film encountered some difficulty in getting high-ranking industry heads to speak about the cyberattack, the full extent of which is still being discovered.

There’s currently no release date or title announced for the film.

[Image courtesy of Kobby Dagan/Shutterstock]

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