Hackers Leak New Sony Movies, Threaten to Dump Stars' Personal Info

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The unidentified hackers who reportedly crippled operations at Sony Pictures last week have made good on their threat to release files stolen from the studio's servers, leaking a handful of new movies—some of which haven't even come out in theaters yet—to file sharing sites.

The Guardians of Peace (#GOP for short) first hit Sony's networks Nov. 24, completely incapacitating the company's computers. Employees reportedly stopped using phones and email, although payroll happened as scheduled Friday.

"Every PC in the company is useless and all of the content files have either been stolen or destroyed or locked away," a source told The Wrap last week, "The IT department has absolutely no idea what hit them or if they can recover any of their files or operating systems, or even turn on their computers."

Sony Pictures planned to be back online today, but there was nothing they could do to stop the #GOP from dumping four unreleased films—Mr. Turner, Still Alice, To Write Love on Her Arms, and Annie—plus Brad Pitt's Fury onto BitTorrent sites over the weekend. The leaked copies have studio watermarks, and a spokesperson confirmed to Variety that they're likely related to the hack.

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The hackers claim to have even more files waiting to be released, including "A-list actors' passports, financial data, contract documents, password information and executive emails." Jonah Hill, Cameron Diaz, and Angelina Jolie are among the celebrities whose personal documents were allegedly stolen.

"Sony doesn't lock their doors, physically, so we worked with other staff with similar interests to get in," someone claiming to be one of the hackers wrote in an email to The Verge.

The hackers' identities and motivations are vague. The source told The Verge their goal is "equality."

Variety reports the studio is looking into a possible connection between the #GOP attack and North Korean threats of "stern punishment" related to James Franco and Seth Rogen's The Interview, in which the two are hired to assassinate Dear Leader Kim Jong-un.

The link is tenuous, though. The Interview, which is due out Dec. 25, wasn't one of the leaked films, and the studio told Variety it currently has no evidence North Korea is involved in the hack, but the investigation has to consider "all possible sources."


Sony’s outbreak marks the biggest piracy incident since July, when Lionsgate saw “Expendables 3″ pop up online three weeks before its theatrical release. Police arrested two men in London earlier this week in connection with the stolen file.

While “Fury” has emerged as a hot ticket in file-sharing circles, the other Sony titles aren’t seeing as much sampling. “Annie” has been downloaded by over 184,000 unique IP addresses. Studio is hopeful “Annie” won’t be pirated as much because family films aren’t subject to as much illegal downloading as titles that skew more toward young males.

“Still Alice,” “Mr. Turner” and “To Write Love on Her Arms” are seeing only modest piracy activity, all below 100,000 unique IP addresses since Nov. 27.

[UPDATE, Nov. 30, 11 a.m. Pacific: “Fury” now has been downloaded via piracy sites more than 1.2 million times, while “Annie” has topped 206,000 downloads by unique IP addresses, according to Excipio. Downloads of “Still Alice” stood at 103,832, followed by “Mr. Turner” at 63,379 and “To Write Love on Her Arms” at 19,946.]
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