Although big names like Judd Apatow, Rob Lowe and Aaron Sorkin loudly and publicly backed Sony Pictures and “The Interview” against the North Korean cyber-terrorists trying to tear the studio into pieces, George Clooney still puffed himself up as Hollywood’s Batman Thursday with the announcement that no one would sign his petition backing the studio.
According to George Clooney, George Clooney’s petition proved that only George Clooney had the moral courage to stand up to the terrorists.
Why George Clooney didn’t ask Rob Lowe, Aaron Sorkin, and Judd Apatow to sign the George Clooney petition is only something George Clooney can answer.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, though, George Clooney didn’t ask a whole lot of people to sign his George Clooney petition before George Clooney ran to the media to claim that only George Clooney had the George Clooney-ish courage to stand up for Sony.
THR says it spoke to “Disney, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate as well as fellow talent agencies WME and UTA,” and they all claim that no senior executives were given the opportunity to sign the petition.
“I never heard of it until I saw press about a petition not getting signed,” says one studio head, who asked to remain anonymous. “No one I know has heard of it. We were just discussing that, of course, we would’ve signed it, but we had never heard of it, and these were a lot of high-level industry people.”
For his part, Clooney appears to be changing his story a bit. Yesterday, Clooney told THR, “Bryan Lourd and I were sent a letter from the head of the MPAA Chris Dodd, which was to be circulated to the studios. It didn’t ask for support for the release of the film in the face of threats, so we wrote a new letter and sent it to the MPAA. Over the next 24 hours, Bryan asked several people to sign on to the petition. One said he would if others did, [and] the rest said, flat-out, ‘No.’ Chris Dodd told Bryan that he had no takers either.”
This is what Clooney told Deadline last week: “[The petition] was sent to basically the heads of every place. They told Bryan Lourd, ‘I can’t sign this.’ What? How can you not sign this? I’m not going to name anyone, that’s not what I’m here to do, but nobody signed the letter[.]”
No one who said they did not receive the petition would go on the record with THR.
Clooney will not name anyone who refused to sign the petition.
Regardless, we’re still left wondering why Clooney didn’t ask Sorkin, Lowe, and Apatow to sign on.
John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC