Holy shit. I knew the movie theater chains were a bunch of wimps, but I can't believe Sony caved like this.

In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film The Interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release. We respect and understand our partners’ decision and, of course, completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theater-goers.

Sony Pictures has been the victim of an unprecedented criminal assault against our employees, our customers, and our business. Those who attacked us stole our intellectual property, private emails, and sensitive and proprietary material, and sought to destroy our spirit and our morale – all apparently to thwart the release of a movie they did not like. We are deeply saddened at this brazen effort to suppress the distribution of a movie, and in the process do damage to our company, our employees, and the American public. We stand by our filmmakers and their right to free expression and are extremely disappointed by this outcome.

I'm deeply saddened that a corporation bowed to what basically amounts to one threatening e-mail.

UPDATE 2:56 PM: And now the rest of Hollywood is showing the same lack of spine. This morning, New Regency pulled the plug on a Gore Verbinski-directed, Steve Carell-starring "paranoid thriller" that was to be set in North Korea. Filming on that movie was supposed to begin in March.

UPDATE 3:18 PM: David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth at the New York Times quote unnamed "American intelligence officials" in saying that North Korea was “centrally involved” with the Sony hack. The government is currently considering their response to the hack:

Some within the Obama administration argue that the government of Mr. Kim must be directly confronted, but that raises the question of what consequences the administration would threaten — or how much of its evidence it could make public without revealing details of how the United States was able to penetrate North Korean computer networks to trace the source of the hacking.

Others argue that a direct confrontation with the North over the threats to Sony and moviegoers might result in escalation, and give North Korea the kind of confrontation it often covets.

UPDATE 3:43 PM: However, Kim Zetter at Wired insists North Korea "almost certainly" wasn't behind the hack.

UPDATE 4:34 PM: Although it's worth noting that Wired changed the headline on Zetter's story to remove the words "almost certainly." Now the story has a much softer headline calling evidence of North Korea's connection "flimsy."