No, Sony did not surrender

Gizmodo: "Paramount Cancels Team America Screenings Because Everyone's a Coward"

It seems that in the wake of Sony Pictures yanking The Interview from its no-longer-pending Dec. 25 release, some theaters announced they would show Team America instead, which also mocks and brings comedy ruin upon the North Korean gangster regime. Apparently, Paramount, which owns the right to Team America, has put a halt to that.

In the wake of the North Korean victory over American Constitutional rights, a lot of commentators are accusing Sony of surrendering. I beg to differ. It was not Sony who surrendered, it was a number of theater chains.

Sony didn't pull the flick until the three largest theater chains in North America had already dropped it. That's in addition to a large number of other chain that dropped it, too. Altogether, more than 18,000 screens that would have shown the movie suddenly were not.

It costs a studio money just to open a film and to manage it during its run. There are a lot of overhead costs that come into play after the release date. But with no significant number of theaters willing to show the film, paying those costs would just be throwing away money on a movie that now had no hope whatever of even breaking even. Sony made a sound business decision with the rotten facts as they faced them.

It was Carmike, Regal and other chains who surrendered, not Sony. See, "Cowardly U.S. theaters refuse to show 'The Interview' after free speech threats"