Posted on December 19, 2014

Sharpton to Have Say over How Sony Makes Movies

Reuven Fenton et al., New York Post, December 18, 2014

Coming to a theater near you: Al Sharpton.​

Hollywood ​came to the Rev. Al Thursday as embattled Sony exec Amy Pascal ​met ​privately with the ​black leader for 90 minutes ​in a bid to fix the fallout from the ​cyberhacking ​leak of embarrassing, racially charged emails.

Pascal agreed to let Sharpton have a say in how Sony makes motion pictures, in an effort to combat what he called “inflexible and immovable racial exclusion in Hollywood.”

“We have agreed to having a working group deal with the racial bias and lack of diversity in Hollywood,” said Sharpton.

He said Sony would work closely with his National Action Network, ​the ​National Urban League, ​the ​NAACP and the Black Women’s Round Table to “see if we can come up with an immediate plan to deal with it.”

The meeting, held behind closed doors at the Greenwich Hotel, also included National Urban League president Marc Morial.

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Sharpton called the conversation “candid” but stopped short of calling for Pascal’s head after she was exposed making racist remarks about President Obama with Hollywood producer Scott Rudin.

“So the jury is still out on where we go with Amy,” Sharpton said. “We clearly are willing to deal with an immediate formula to see where we deal with breaking down the walls of inflexible and so far immovable racial exclusion in Hollywood.”

He was mum on the exact details of the plan to work with Sony but added, “We are not going to be satisfied until we see something concrete done.”

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