Amy Pascal is out as Sony Pictures head
Sony Pictures Entertainment is rebuilding after it was crippled last last year by a massive cyber attack. Part of that means distancing itself from its co-chair Amy Pascal, who announced Wednesday that she will step down in March.
Pascal is getting a nice production deal at Sony and says she’s always wanted to be a producer, but she also seems to be taking the fall for last year’s costly and embarrassing attack.
“No one is ever officially fired in Hollywood, but I think it’s safe to say nobody also leaves a job that pays $15 million a year for no good reason,” says Tatiana Siegel, who covered the shake-up for the Hollywood Reporter. She says Pascal’s fate was sealed the day that it was announced that North Korea was behind the hack.
“Amy Pascal has to take the blame, because she’s the one who agreed to make this movie” Siegel says.
The whole episode stretched from November to the holidays, shut down Sony’s computers, exposed private emails and company data, scuttled the theatrical release of “The Interview” and eventually led to economic sanctions against the alleged attackers in North Korea.
Here’s a look back at the whole story:
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