Free Republic

More than 250 companies are looking to follow Sony by moving from the UK to the Netherlands because of Brexit, it emerged on Wednesday. The Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA) said that scores of companies with UK headquarters had expressed interest in relocating, and the number was expected to rise.Sony is among several corporations that are taking early action to mitigate the effect of a disorderly Brexit. The number of businesses we are in contact with for a possible arrival is growing Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency The Japanese company explained that the decision to move its legal base from the...

To have fought your way into the dream machine, only to find that after years of quality work there is no job for you -- that is a harsh blow and a sign of our era How do you take the measure of 4,000 jobs lost in an industry with the size and scope of Hollywood? That's the number of pink slips being handed by Disney to Fox employees now that the merged mega-studio won't need them anymore. Four. Thousand. Jobs. It's undoubtedly the largest layoff from a single entertainment company in a generation -- maybe ever -- a fact...

“Today following its event at the Steve Jobs Theater, Apple released the latest major update for iPhones and iPads: iOS 12.2,” Ryan Christoffel reports for MacStories. “This version of iOS launches Apple’s just-debuted subscription service for News, includes support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit on compatible TVs and streaming hardware, plus it brings four new Animoji, and more.” “Coinciding with the announcement of Apple’s grand TV plans, iOS 12.2 brings key system support for AirPlay 2 on compatible hardware – including streaming devices like the Apple TV and the newest TV sets from Samsung, LG, Sony, and Vizio,” Christoffel reports....

Forty years ago the big holiday hit was Superman, Hollywood’s very first superhero blockbuster. Warner Bros marketed the movie by promising the sky to moviegoers: “You’ll believe a man can fly.” Now, four decades later, that promise should be rewritten to reflect a new era of superhero blockbusters: “You better believe a woman can fly, too.” Deadline broke the news this week that Sony is ramping up a Spider-Women film that will feature three female iterations of Marvel’s wall-crawling Spider-Man and a script by Bek Smith. The project joins a growing wave of female superhero projects in the works that...

Sony Pictures Television, which owns distribution rights to the sitcom, is in early talks to reboot the Diff'rent Strokes spinoff that originally aired on NBC for nine seasons and more than 200 episodes. A network is not yet attached and a search for a writer is underway. Sources say Leonardo DiCaprio and Jessica Biel are in early talks to exec the reboot via their respective Appian Way and Ocean Films production companies. Sony TV declined comment. The series, which starred Charlotte Rae, Lisa Whelchel, Kim Fields, Mandy Cohn and Nancy McKeon, is one of the longest-running comedies of the '80s...

Sony Pictures is owner producer of the film. Call them now and often. tell them to get rid of the movie. 310-244-4000 Customer service—give them an earful as soon as they answer Sony Pictures Studios 10202 West Washington Boulevard Culver City, CA 90232

For all those Sony fanboys who at one point argued that Ellie from The Last Us wasn’t actually a lesbian, and that the interracial kiss she shared with her dying friend in The Last of Us: Left Behind was just a moment of intense emotional reactions. However, as revealed during this year’s E3 showcase, it was hammered home that Ellie is indeed a full-on, hardcore, need-no-man lesbian. The video cinematic mixes itself in with what Naughty Dog attempts to portray as in-game play, but it’s pretty obvious that the gameplay won’t be anywhere near as cinematic as it’s portrayed in...

Critics have found a number of ways to describe Sony Pictures’ new adaptation of Beatrix Potter’s mischievous yet beloved bunny, “Peter Rabbit.” The modern Peter Rabbit is a frat bro, a “raging narcissist,” a vandal that escalates a feud into a “truly sadistic display of violence.” Now, the bunny character has been billed as something else — a food allergy bully. The scene prompted intense backlash from allergy advocacy groups and parents of children with food allergies, who said it mocked an attack that in real life could have proved fatal. The segment led to a hashtag — #boycottpeterrabbit —...

Sony Entertainment has canceled the American Film Institute premiere of the film All the Money in the World amid a litany of sexual abuse allegations against actor Kevin Spacey. “All the Money in the World is a superb film and more than worthy of its place of honor in the AFI Fest,” TriStar Pictures, the film division of Sony Entertainment, said in a statement, Deadline reports. “But given the current allegations surrounding one of its actors and out of respect for those impacted, it would be inappropriate to celebrate at a gala at this difficult time. Accordingly, the film will...

For too long, Hollywood has inserted offensive, lewd, vulgar, and violent content into movies, leaving few appropriate movie options for families. The good news is that Sony Pictures recently announced a ‘Clean Version’ pilot program. This program will allow families to rent clean versions of certain movies. That’s right, these movies will have foul language, sexual content, and explicit violence edited out. This is fantastic news for family audiences! But the battle for the family is never easy. Some powerful filmmakers are furious with Sony Pictures for offering this option to families and Sony is already wavering. Director Judd Apatow...

Dissent may be the highest form of patriotism (when the GOP has power, anyway) but circulating nasty drawings of political opponents has to be the lowest form of dissent. And that’s what the left’s giant temper tantrum has come down to.   According to LA Weekly, “illustrators from studios including Disney, Sony, Nickelodeon and DreamWorks have gotten together to collaborate on the picture book Not My President. A crowdfunding campaign is in progress, and proceeds will support the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and L.A. Justice Fund.” The drawings are all too predictable: Trump as Fascist, Trump as diaper-clad infant, Trump supporters as racists. This...

Sony Pictures Television is in very early stages of rebooting several classic sitcoms from TV legend Norman Lear as miniseries — including “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” and “Good Times” — Variety has learned exclusively. The idea currently being discussed by Lear and Sony executives would be to have new actors recreate classic episodes of the shows, working from the original scripts, and package them as short, six-episode anthologies. The scripts would be treated similar to plays being mounted in new productions. “There is some talk about doing some of the original shows, redoing them with today’s stars,” Lear...

It’s been almost two decades since the DVD arrived, sparking the long, slow decline of video cassette tapes. But the tape era is about to come to a final close. The last maker of VHS-compatible video cassette recorders, Japanese manufacturer Funai Electric, says its going to stop producing the devices at the end of the month due to declining sales. Sony said it would cease production of video tapes in its Betamax format last year, 13 years after it stopped making compatible recorders.

Sony/ATV Music Publishing — which administers Queen’s catalog including songs such as “We Are the Champion” — said a statement Tuesday they have repeatedly asked Trump not to use the “We Are the Champions,” which he played Monday during the first day of the Republican National Convention. Last month, Queen guitarist Brian May also wrote a blog post protesting the use of the song by the Trump campaign. “Sony/ATV Music Publishing has never been asked by Mr. Trump, the Trump campaign or the Trump Organization for permission to use ‘We are the Champions’ by Queen. On behalf of the band,...

Jodie Foster's film — reuniting stars Julia Roberts and George Clooney — makes its world premiere Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival hours before it starts rolling out in the U.S.; 'Captain America: Civil War' crosses $200 million domestically for a global total of $737.8 million. Jodie Foster's financial thriller Money Monster is eyeing a bearish opening in the U.S., where it is looking at a debut in the low-teen millions, if tracking is correct. Sony/TriStar insiders are being even more conservative and suggesting their pic will open in the $10 million range, thanks to another kind of monster —...

Bad news Betamax lovers. The 40-year-old video cassette tapes are about to die. Sony broke the news on its website Tuesday, saying it would stop making the tapes as of March 2016. The cassette tapes went along with the Beta VCR, the first model which was released back in 1975. The system allowed viewers to record their favourite TV programs onto Betamax tapes. Sony discontinued the players back in 2002, but its cassette tapes lived on.

In a 2013 script for the movie “Pixels,” intergalactic aliens blast a hole in one of China’s national treasures – the Great Wall. That scene is gone from the final version of the sci-fi comedy, starring Adam Sandler and released by Sony Pictures Entertainment this week in the United States. The aliens strike iconic sites elsewhere, smashing the Taj Mahal in India, the Washington Monument and parts of Manhattan. Sony executives spared the Great Wall because they were anxious to get the movie approved for release in China, a review of internal Sony Pictures emails shows. It is just one...

Peter Parker and his alter ego Spider-Man must be heterosexual and Parker must be Caucasian, according to a legal licensing agreement between Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Entertainment. The information was disclosed in a massive document release by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, which released this week 276,394 private files, emails and financial data onto its servers. Sony Pictures and Marvel reps declined to comment on the licensing agreement, first reported by the Gawker website. The contract went into effect in September 2011. It lists “mandatory” character traits for both Peter Parker and Spider-Man — and the agreement includes the caveat that Spider-Man...

WikiLeaks has added “thousands” more hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment emails to its searchable database. WikiLeaks made the announcement Thursday in a posting on its Twitter account. The move came two weeks after WikiLeaks disclosed that it had published 30,287 documents and 173,132 emails stemming from last winter’s cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange said in an April 16 statement that information was newsworthy, adding, “It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there.”

WikiLeaks has made more than 30,000 documents from last year's Sony Pictures hack available to the public. The documents were put online in a searchable database on Thursday, which WikiLeaks says includes more than 173,132 emails from 2,200 Sony Pictures email addresses. "This archive shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation," Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, wrote in a statement. "It is newsworthy and at the centre of a geo-political conflict. It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there." A Sony Pictures spokesperson said in a statement that it strongly condemned the actions of...