Uber-producer Scott Rudin and Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal mocked President Obama in a volley of racially-charged e-mails, new hacked documents reveal.
The Hollywood power pair riff in the e-mails on what movies the president might like to chat about — naming only black-themed films or actors, including “Django Unchained,” “12 Years A Slave,” “The Butler,” and comedian Kevin Hart.
The crass exchange is begun by Pascal, who sought Rudin’s advice in advance of an Obama fundraising breakfast thrown in Oct. 2013 by DreamWorks Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg.
“What should I ask the president at this stupid Jeffrey breakfast,” Pascal huffs in an e-mail to Rudin.
“Would he like to finance some movies,” Rudin suggests.
“I doubt it,” responds Pascal. “Should I ask him if he liked DJANGO?” she adds, not-so-randomly referencing Quentin Tarrantino’s brutal, 2012 movie about slavery and revenge.
Rudin is more than game, piping in, “12 YEARS,” a reference to the powerful, Academy Award-winning historical drama “12 Years A Slave” from 2013.
“Or the butler. Or think like a man,” Pascal chimes in. “The Butler,” from 2013, depicts an African-American butler in the White House, and “Think Like A Man” is a 2012 romantic comedy about four African-American couples.
Rudin has one last suggestion for the commander-in-chief’s favorite flicks list.
“Ride-along. I bet he likes Kevin Hart,” he answers. “Ride Along” was a 2014 action comedy starring Hart and the rapper-actor Ice Cube.
The nauseating exchange is just the latest publicity soaking for Sony in a month-long, tsunami-like deluge of often-embarrassing in-house studio document leaks, all hacked and uploaded to public file-sharing sites by an anonymous group calling itself “Guardians of Peace.”
Some of the leaked material has been less embarrassing than just plain fun — including e-mails that surfaced Thursday giving a tantalizing peek at the next Bond movie, “Spectre.”
The e-mails reveal that Bond will have another go at monacle-wearing, Persian-cat stroking supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld. No word on whether actor Christoph Walz will reprise the role.
The e-mails also make enigmatic reference to a character described only as “lesbian bad lady.”
In more Bond dish, a new Bond boss at M16, “C,” will be played by Andrew Scott, who is allegedly under contract for a sum $1 million below what was offered, and rejected, by Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Back in the “embarrassing” category, new leaks of salary documents show that the head of Sony Pictures, Michael Lynton, is paid twice the salary of his boss, Sony Corp’s CEO Kazuo Hirai.
In the last fiscal year, Lynton earned $3 million, while Hirai was paid a comparatively paltry $1.5 million, according to a spreadsheet the hackers posted on the file-sharing site Pirate Bay.
Hirai does get some stock options, but eight other executives in the spreadsheet earn the same or higher salaries than he does.
Investigators with Sony and the FBI believe the hackers are working for North Korea, which has praised the leaks while denying any involvement.
The Pyongyang government has been denouncing Sony’s plans for a Christmas release of “The Interview,” a comedy in which James Franco and Seth Rogen star as two journalist recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The movie is an “undisguised sponsoring of terrorism, as well as an act of war,” Kim has snarled in a letter to UN secretary-general Bank Ki-moon.
Sources told CNN that the code used in the attack is indeed written in Korean, and had previously been used in cyber-attacks against South Korea.
So far, the hackers have leaked a trove of Sony employee personal data, salaries, and in-house correspondence.
On Wednesday, Rudin was revealed to have e-mailed Pascal that actress Angelina Jolie is nothing but a “minimally talented spoiled brat” from “Crazyland.”
And there’s no sign of any letup.
On Thursday, the hackers issued broken-English threats of still further leaks.
“You, SONY & FBI, cannot find us,” the hackers taunted on Thursday.
“We are perfect as much. The destiny of SONY is totally up to the wise reaction & measure of SONY.”
Senior executives at Sony have insisted as recently as Wednesday that hacks or no, they will release “The Interview” at Christmas.
Additional security was ordered for a red-carpet premiere of “The Interview” Thursday at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, Deadline.com reported.
The studio banned interviews and television broadcasts from the red carpet.
“We want to thank Amy Pascal for having the balls to make this movie,” a sincere-sounding Rogen told the audience.