Guards of Peace, the hackers who cracked Sony, are back in the spotlight with yet another information dump. This is the seventh file leak to result from cyber-crimes carried out roughly three weeks ago, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and the official 007 website confirms James Bond himself is one of the high-profile victims.
An “early version of the screenplay for the new Bond film Spectre is amongst the material stolen and illegally made public by hackers who infiltrated the Sony Pictures Entertainment computer system” admitted Eon Productions, the British production company responsible for the Bond series.
The 24th installment is barely underway, and recently revealed its full cast ahead of an October 2015 release. Sony may have hoped to keep a lid on post-Skyfall cinematic events a while longer, but at the end of the day, these things happen, even when catastrophic security breaches don’t come into the equation. Just think of poor Quentin Tarantino and his unfortunate Hateful Eight leak.
Besides, if it’s really an “early version of the screenplay” that the GoP obtained, there’s still some adjusting to do, so all in all, this sounds like the least of Sony’s worries. Mind you, previous spills divulged pretty sensitive and outright embarrassing intel, including home addresses, confidential salaries and social security numbers of celebrities, and colorful dialogues between Sony execs and collaborators.
THR reports the giant’s co-chairman, Amy Pascal, described Leonardo DiCaprio’s departure from the Steve Jobs biopic as “despicable”, and TriStar head honcho Tom Rothman mocked Will Smith’s kids for being “home schooled.” That’s just a small sample of the truly messy documents that were never supposed to go public, and odds are this latest dump will add to the pile.
Even worse, the Guardians of Peace are suggesting the biggest bombshell could drop as a “Christmas gift” in the coming weeks. No way to know exactly what it is yet, but the hackers boldly claim it will “put Sony Pictures into the worst state.” All things considered, it’s starting to feel like it’d have been easier for Sony to simply nix The Interview, doesn’t it?
