President Obama: I Might Have Called Theater Bosses to Help Sony

President Obama recently spoke out on the Sony leak saying that he could offered help had the Sony bosses came to him first.

During his end of year press conference at The White House on Friday, Obama told reporters he thought studio executives had “made a mistake” in scrapping The Interview‘s Christmas release after bowing to pressure from cyber terrorists unhappy with the movie, in which Rogen and James Franco play journalists assigned to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The President said he was surprised that Sony bosses had not contacted him before pulling the plug on the film.

Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union show tonight, he added that he has been in contact with Sony executives, telling them he could have offered them a lot of help.

He said, “I was pretty sympathetic to the fact that they have business considerations that they got to make. Had they talked to me directly about this decision, I might have called the movie theatre chains and distributors and asked them what the story was.”

In response to Obama’s remarks on Friday, Sony CEO Michael Lynton insisted the studio bosses had been in contact with The White House before the decision was made to pull the film from release. He insisted there was nothing the movie executives could do after the owners of so many cinema chains made it clear they would not be screening The Interview, following terrorist threats to target theaters that did show the film.

Meanwhile, late on Sunday, Sony’s company attorney, David Boies, announced The Interview will be released – but not on Christmas Day.

During an interview for TV news show Meet the Press, Boies said, “Sony only delayed this. Sony has been fighting to get this picture distributed. It will be distributed.”