Maybe this time we’ll stay mad at the guy(s) threatening to kill people, instead of redirecting our anger at Uber. Or we’ll just redirected it towards squishy studios and theaters.

After a raft of movie theaters declined to show The Interview, amid threats of violence, Sony has announced that they are pulling the release of the film.

Presumably the film will be released once an investigation determines that no violence is forthcoming.

This has led to a lot of criticism for, essentially, giving in to terrorism. A lot of that criticism is directed at Sony, though I’m not sure how much of it should be. If theaters don’t want to show it, then they’re not going to get the premier that they want. The theaters are themselves the ones who caved. Of course, they themselves would be opening themselves up to enormous lawsuits if they did show the picture and violence did occur. So we can perhaps blame the lawyers, or alternately insurance companies that told the theaters not to do it.

It’s easy to say “Don’t give in to terrorism” when our livelihoods aren’t affected.

But dammit. This is the most irritated I’ve been by a delayed screening since they pushed V for Vendetta away from the pre-ordained November 5th release date. Though I had no particular intention of watching this film upon its release.

And ultimately, it’ll wait I suppose.

As an aside, it’s interesting that this is the movie that is causing issues. It also may put Hollywood in a bit of a pickle. Due to overseas sales, they’re not as eager to cast China as the villain as they used to be. Which is why when they were remaking Red Dawn, they chose North Korea as the invading force instead of the more likely culprit China. Or, for that matter, Russia itself (whom I’ve read actually kind of relish being the bad guys). Then again, maybe they’d invade on the idea that we’re the type of people to cancel a movie premier on the basis of vague threats.