Surely if the movie is bad this (http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30589472) is still an incredibly good launch by world class pr people. If the movie is good then it's still a good launch and will make money afterwards. The thing about bad movies is you can only make money on the opening weekend - this marketing was free (+the original marketing costs already spent and ignoring the lasting costs of being hacked) so the ROI will be incredibly good. Any film that caused the president to give a speech about it pre-release is going to do well on the opening weekend - I still don't think it matters if it turns out its a bad film or not, but I can't wait for the data. I guess it will be here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interview_(2014_film) And total costs around <$100m (again discounting hack).
This also isn't taking into account the ROI from turning Sony into the victim in this scenario - not a massive company with a tiny, unsophisticated infosec team who messed up big time by not investing more in security.
This also isn't taking into account the ROI from turning Sony into the victim in this scenario - not a massive company with a tiny, unsophisticated infosec team who messed up big time by not investing more in security.