Sony hack reveals Jolie in e-mail crossfire over Jobs movie

Los Angeles: Personal information as well as email exchanges were revealed in a devastating hacking attack on Sony’s movie studio last month. But among all of the information that has spilled forth, perhaps nothing has riveted Hollywood more than a humiliating email exchange between Amy Pascal, Sony’s co-chairwoman, and the producer Scott Rudin over Angelina Jolie and a planned Steve Jobs biopic.

On Wednesday, Sony was scrambling to cope with the fallout from the incendiary emails posted by Gawker, the tabloid news site, that revealed an ugly internal battle over “Jobs,” an Aaron Sorkin-scripted biopic of the Apple co-founder. Rudin, who is widely known for his razor-toothed missives and temper, was upset that his favored director for the picture, David Fincher, was being pulled by Jolie toward a competing Sony movie, a remake of “Cleopatra” with Jolie in the title role.

Rudin referred to Jolie as “a minimally talented spoiled brat” and pressured Pascal to shelve “Cleopatra.”

Pascal at times tried to calm Rudin, whose company is supported financially under a deal with Sony, writing, “This doesn’t need to get crazy.”

By the end, however, “Jobs” had moved to Universal, and Rudin, according to the emails, told Pascal that she had “behaved abominably, and it will be a very, very long time before I forget what you did.”

Pascal then wrote a lieutenant to “get rid of him,” an apparent reference to Rudin’s deal.

Pascal declined a request to discuss the exchange. A spokesman for Jolie said she had no comment.

“This is not about salacious emails being batted around by Gawker and Defamer,”Rudin said on Wednesday. “It’s about a criminal act, and the people behind it should be treated as nothing more nor less than criminals.”

For Michael Lynton, the chief executive of a music, television and movies unit called Sony Entertainment, the hacking scandal has ensnared him and his company at a time when he was supposed to be on a victory lap. Some in the film industry have speculated that he soon planned to climb the corporate ladder into a job that would add to his responsibilities, perhaps to coincide with a planned move of his home base from Los Angeles to New York.

Lynton declined through a spokesman to address that talk on Wednesday, but one person briefed on his plans said no change in his corporate responsibilities was in the works.