Sony aims to release 'The Interview' on different platform

Sony Pictures still hopes to release "The Interview" in some format, despite having canceled its theatrical release, the Hollywood studio said Friday.

It made the pledge shortly after US President Barack Obama accused Sony of making a "mistake" by canceling the movie's December 25 release date in the face of a massive cyber-attack blamed on North Korea.

After canceling the release, "we immediately began actively surveying alternatives to enable us to release the movie on a different platform," Sony said in a statement.

"It is still our hope that anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so."

Sony was reviewing a number of possible formats for a non-theatrical release, which could include DVD or streaming.

The studio added: "The only decision that we have made with respect to release of the film was not to release it on Christmas Day in theaters, after the theater owners declined to show it. Without theaters, we could not release it in the theaters on Christmas Day. We had no choice."

At a news conference Friday, Obama said he was "sympathetic" to Sony's woes, but said, "We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States."

Sony responded quickly, saying it "is and always has been strongly committed to the First Amendment."

"For more than three weeks, despite brutal intrusions into our company and our employees' personal lives, we maintained our focus on one goal: getting the film The Interview released.

"Free expression should never be suppressed by threats and extortion."

Sony was hit by a massive hacking attack on November 24 threatening reprisals over the release of the movie, which depicts a fictional CIA plot to assassinate Kim Jong-Un.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said earlier Friday that it believed North Korea was behind the hackers, who earlier this week invoked the September 11, 2001 attacks in warning people not to go and see the movie.