The White House is threatening unspecified "reprisals" against North Korea for a computer hacking attack on Sony Pictures.
Sony has shelved plans to launch "The Interview", a comedy film about a fictional assassination attempt against the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
That decision was taken after threats were made to attack cinemas showing the movie.
But it's been greeted with howls of protest from leading figures in the US entertainment industry, as our Washington Correspondent Simon Marks reports.
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Sony Pictures may be wondering how exactly it got itself into this jam.
After all….judging from the trailer, "The Interview" is hardly a piece of iconic comedy that will ever rival the achievements of Charlie Chaplin, The Marx Brothers or Woody Allen.
Its premise…that a fictional American talk show host is invited to interview Kim Jong Un, the very real dictator of North Korea.
And before heading to Pyongyang, he's asked to do the CIA's dirty work.
While there have been recent Hollywood productions that have alienated foreign powers - remember Kazakhstan's protestations about Sacha Baron Cohen's character "Borat" - there has never been a response quite like the one that US officials say North Korea unleashed on Sony Pictures.
Computer hackers calling themselves the "Guardians of Peace" broke into Sony's mainframe….stole thousands of e-mails exchanged between its executives, plus copies of unreleased films…and acquired the passwords used by members of the Sony team which apparently were stored in a file cunningly called "Passwords".
White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
Sony's decision to shelve the Christmas Day launch of The Interview was made after "Guardians of Peace" - or at least, someone acting in their name - threatened to launch attacks against cinemas in America that screened the film.
But Sony's decision to bow to the inevitable, after 5 of America's leading theater chains said they were dropping the film, has been met with a storm of protest.
On Twitter, actors, directors and screenwriters called Sony's decision "sickening", "unAmerican" and "cowardly".
Charles Rahi Chun is one of the actors in the film.
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But amid all that talk about artistic freedom, there's been another plot twist in the story.
It's emerged that there are some people in Washington who have already seen "The Interview".
Obama administration officials who "shared input" with the film-makers, but claim they were not trying to influence the creative process.
Again, White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
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If only Sony could travel back in time to that moment when they were first pitched "The Interview" as a movie.
That's one retake executives at the company must sorely wish they'd been able to order.
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