Sony Pictures Entertainment has reached a settlement with current and former employees, agreeing to pay up to $8 million to reimburse them for identity-theft losses, preventative measures and legal fees related to the hack of its computers last year.
The settlement was filed with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles late Monday and still needs to be approved by a judge.
The agreement calls for up to $10,000 a person, capped at $2.5 million, to reimburse workers for identity theft losses, up to $1,000 each to cover the cost of credit-fraud protection services, capped at $2 million, and up to $3.5 million in legal fees.
Hackers calling themselves Guardians of Peace broke into Sony Pictures computers and last November released thousands of emails, documents, social security numbers and other personal information in an attempt to derail the release of the North Korean-focused comedy "The Interview." The U.S. government blamed North Korea for the attack.
In a memo to staff Tuesday, Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton called the agreement "an important, positive step forward in putting the cyber-attack firmly behind us."
Sony Corp. CEO Kazuo Hirai told a technology conference on Tuesday that following the hack, the movie studio has "come out more resilient, more strong and they have a very good management team in place now." Hirai said there wasn't much of a business impact from the hack, although he said employee morale was hurt for a short time.
Former Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal left her position after a trove of embarrassing emails was leaked, including racially insensitive remarks about President Barack Obama's purported taste in movies. She continues to run a production venture at Sony that will handle major blockbuster franchises such as the "Spider-Man" series.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More