2014 Was a Hollywood Game Changer

Sharon Waxman | Founder & CEO, TheWrap

The year 2014 was anything but normal, but none of it was apparent until the year was nearly over – November 24, the day the Sony hack attack unfolded.

At that moment, Hollywood was turned upside down.

The implications of the hack are still playing out, but they will be profound for an industry that for too long has resisted the change clamoring outside its window. Change has now come charging through the front door.

Deep in our marrow all of us know what happened to Sony may have been bizarre, may have been unpredictable, may have been too outrageous for a Hollywood script. Nonetheless, it was a debacle waiting to happen, and one that could similarly befall any major entertainment company.

And still may.

The immediate repercussions of the Sony hack are still in mid-ripple. Most in the industry and on Wall Street seem certain that Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal will lose her job (after a decorous though undetermined period of time).

Fatally damaged and apparently living inside a bubble, Pascal has no desire to leave her longtime perch, and no pressing inner voice telling her to step down for reasons of corporate responsibility. In a painful moment this week, TMZ ambushed her and husband Bernard Weinraub at the airport on their way home from a holiday and when asked if she thinks she will keep her job Pascal responded: “I hope so.” This from a corporate leader who has called a half-dozen industry colleagues to apologize preventively, in anticipation of what offenses may still emerge from her email outbox.

More.