Regardless of what you think of James Franco and Seth Rogen’s films, the disaster that took place in a matter of minutes in Hollywood Wednesday night was a major blow to all artists and free speech. Sony and the major theater chains gave the North Korean-enlisted hacker group Guardians of Peace exactly what they wanted by cancelling the release of The Interview, setting a dangerous precedent.

At first, the hack attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment wasn’t really taken seriously by the Hollywood media, hungry for internal gossip that goes on every day at the major studios. Even when employees’ medical records surfaced and with social security numbers out there, the focus seemed to be on Scott Rudin’s insults at Angelina Jolie or Channing Tatum’s all-caps emails. Of course, here at TheCelebrityCafe.com, we covered those messages as well, because at the time, it seemed like this was as far as it was going to go. Sony was going to get angry, but would they really wind up pulling a hyped-up movie just weeks before its release?

And then everything changed on Tuesday, when the hackers threatened theaters that planned to show the Christmas Day movie and referenced Sept. 11, 2001. “The world will be full of fear. Remember the 11th of September 2001,” the message read. It could have ended there, because that’s all they had to do to get Hollywood executives nervous.

Even then though, Sony showed cowardice. Rather than make a firm stance on the situation, they let the theater owners make the decision to pull the movie. (The National Association of Theater Owners trade group did the same.) Of course, as businesses that put safety before all else, they were going to drop the movie, which they did.

Only then, when they realized that nearly half of all theaters in the U.S. wouldn’t show the film, did Sony make the ultimate decision. They have decided to cancel the film’s release altogether. Some on Twitter suggested that they release it on DVD or Video On Demand instead, but Sony won’t even do that.

At every step of this situation, the North Korean government - which the U.S. now officially linked to the hacking - has gotten what it wants. It not only broke into Sony’s computers, but it broke into our Freedom of Speech, denying us the right to see a movie for ourselves and decide if we think it pushed the envelope. A far-flung communist government shouldn’t get that right.

What sort of precedent does this set? What sort of threats will Hollywood ignore? Which ones will they take seriously? If someone makes a movie bashing our own government, will a studio pull that, too?

Hollywood is a business, above all, and can’t afford a tarnished image. A studio isn’t going to want to be blamed for an attack. But it is a business that relies on its artists to make the money and it is terrible to see how their more adventurous art was treated in this situation. If Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Team America: World Police came out and - going even further back - Charlie Chaplin was allowed to make fun of The Great Dictator at the height of his powers , then The Interview should have been allowed out, even in a limited capacity.

image of Seth Rogen courtesy of Peter West/ACE/INFphoto.com