19 Dec 2014 1:09 PM PT
As reported earlier, President Obama felt that Sony had made a mistake in how they handled the cyber terror attack, by canceling the release of The Interview in all forms of release. Sony CEO Michael Lynton responded to the President with this:
“We have not caved, we have not given in, we have not backed down. we had no alternative but to not proceed with the theatrical release on Dec. 25. I think the unfortunate part is… The President, the press, and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened. We do not own movie theaters. We cannot decide what will be played in movie theaters.”
Sony had left the decision up to theaters as to whether or not they would play the film, but when all the major theater chains and even smaller chains announced they would not release The Interview, Sony felt it had no other decision but to pull the release of the film. However, one could argue that they still had the ability to release the film in Video on Demand (VOD) format and did not respond to that aspect in their statement.