It's liability, which you might call the corporate version of fear.
Even though the chance that North Koreans would stage a terrorist attack in an American movie theater is slim to none, if something did happen, there would be no end to the lawsuits. As the article mentions, even in the case of the Aurora shooting there was plenty of blame being thrown around in the courtroom. The shooter dressed like the Joker, is the Batman movie to blame? Is the theater to blame? Even in a case like that, where there's clearly one violently insane person to blame, lawsuits happened.
In this case, where there was a clear threat issued, if something happened the theaters would be instantly culpable. It wouldn't even have to be North Koreans, maybe just some sick DPRK sympathizer going nuts and shooting someone.
And like they say, on top of that there might be reduced attendance for other movies as well. If someone's going berzerk in the theater that's playing The Interview, do you really want to be next door watching the Hobbit? Do you even want to go to the mall?
I don't think anyone is seriously worried about an attack. They're worried about the potential legal fallout / lowered profits that could occur in a variety of ways. Controversy isn't great for business, especially during the holidays.
That being said, I think it's spineless. The US Government doesn't respond to threats and blackmail, but corporate America is more than happy to sacrifice anything in order to preserve the bottom line.
I had no intention of going to see The Interview at a theater, but if I can find an independent place playing it on opening night (assuming they'll even try to have it open that night), I'll be tempted to go and support them for standing up to idiocy.
Theaters should have gone forward with it. God forbid something happened they could have said "DHS has far more expertise in these matters than entertain chain management, so we were trusting their judgement".
I personally doubt the credibility of the threats; I've also yet to be come across evidence that the same people who made the recent physical threats are responsible for cracking. Anyhow, according to the article:
"officials with the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security, according to a person briefed on the sessions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment.
That person said the officials spoke in terms far less assuring than those used publicly by Homeland Security, which had played down the threat."
This would seem to indicate that federal security agencie were influential in the decision by the cinema theatres.
When I see things like this, it makes me wish I had the ability to just "spin up a theater" just to run one and call their bluff. Perhaps this is just naive bluster, but I there are few things that make me stand my ground like threats.
If you start thinking about the logistics, odds are, this is a very remote possibility.
Most of the reports have said the hackers are either in N. Korea or Eastern Europe. They've threatened US theaters here. So either this is a huge bluff, or they have some serious sleeper cells here in the US they are going to activate them and have them attack theaters in specific cities where the movie is being shown.
The problem with North Korean "sleeper cells" that are resident in the US, is well...once they're here, they kinda shift their opinion on how the world works.
