Former Utah governor and former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, Jr. joined a number of politicians urging Sony Pictures Entertainment to release “The Interview,” despite terrorist threats from hackers that may be linked to North Korea.
“I think we do what we do best, which is, you make a good movie, you say you’re going to deliver it to the people, and you deliver it to the people,” Huntsman, a 2012 presidential candidate, told TMZ in a video released Friday. “You don’t let anybody stand in your way.”
Sony revealed “no further release plans for the film” earlier this week after five major theater chains dropped the R-rated Seth Rogen–James Franco comedy due to a threat of 9/11-like violence on any theater that exhibited the movie.
“Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear,” the hacker group responsible for leaking thousands of the studio’s sensitive documents and emails said in a message on Tuesday. “Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time.”
Although some politicians are calling the threat an act of war, Huntsman doesn’t expect the situation to escalate to any actual violence.
“I don’t think we’re on the brink of chaos, or anything like that,” Huntsman said. “I think freedom is safe for at least another year.”