The revelations stemming from the Sony breach show no signs of ending. The latest is that the script for the next James Bond has been leaked online.
It was an early version of the script for Spectre, which is due to be released in November 2015, and the studio is reportedly still tinkering with the script. But several major plot points and spoilers have made their way online, even down to the type of Aston Martin that our hero will be driving.
"Eon Productions, the producers of the James Bond films, learned this morning that an early version of the screenplay for the new Bond film SPECTRE is amongst the material stolen and illegally made public by hackers who infiltrated the Sony Pictures Entertainment computer system,” reads a statement on the film’s official website. "Eon Productions is concerned that third parties who have received the stolen screenplay may seek to publish it or its contents."
News emerged November 24 that Sony Pictures Entertainment had been hit with a cyber-attack, forcing the IT department to shut down the corporate network and forbid staff from logging in to work email accounts while it investigated.
Some employees claimed that the attack left an image on their screens bearing the message, “We’ve obtained all your internal data including your secrets.”
The attackers claimed to be a group known as the ‘Guardians of Peace’, or GOP, and they threatened to release the sensitive data if Sony didn’t meet their demands.
And release they have, including salary and Social Security numbers for thousands of Sony employees, private emails between executives that include questionable sentiments about celebrities and political figures, including President Obama, information about the future of the Spider-Man franchise, and, of course, intellectual property like the Bond script.