The Interview

[DmonSlyr]

Sony engineered it so they would have a face saving way out without having to look like they gave into the hackers.  Before the movie chains started to say they wouldn't show The Interview, Sony told them they could pull the movie without any penalties, knowing the movie theater chains would and then Sony could claim they're pulling the movie because the movie theater chains aren't going to show it.

Sony caved in, they actually did so back in the summer when NK first started to complain.  The main honcho of Sony in Japan ordered Sony Pictures to change Little Kim's death scene and had to personally approve the reshot death scene.  It was also the Sony president that ordered Sony Pictures to remove any mention of Sony in the movie and in press releases and instead refer to it as a Columbia Pictures release.

ack-ack

Thats a good point. I could see that.

[Chalenge]

I have another scenario for you. The movie sucks.

[SysError]

This is interesting:

Sony did lay off large portion of their IT department last year because of supposed lapses of proper network security protocol.  I'm sure there was a disgruntled IT nerd or two amongst the bunch.

ack-ack

... the malware used specifically targeted areas of Sony's network that showed it had to have had prior knowledge from the inside - of course, this could just be another level of hacking, ...

Social engineering (or social hacking), i.e. getting a password from a user by pretending to be the IT department,  used to be the number one  manner in which organizational data was accessed.