As North Korea stepped up its rhetoric and claimed the US government was behind The Interview, a Sony attorney said on Sunday (December 21) that the studio will distribute the film in some format.

David Boies made the statement on TV interview show Meet The Press. The attorney recently sent a letter to the media urging them not to publish stolen information obtained from leaks resulting from the cyber attacks that the FBI has attributed to North Korea.

“How it’s going to be distributed I don’t think anybody knows quite yet, but it’s going to be distributed,” Boies said.

While internet giants Netflix, Google, Apple and Amazon remained silent on the matter, there was speculation that Sony’s own Crackle online distribution service or YouTube might be strong contenders to release the comedy.

Meanwhile North Korean state broadcaster KCNA issued a statement on Sunday claiming the US administration had created The Interview, in which Seth Rogen and James Franco play TV interviewers who become involved in a plot to assassinate Kim Jong-un.

President Obama, who weighed in on the affair on Friday when he said Sony made a mistake in pulling the film’s December 25 US release, called the attacks on Sony Pictures “cyber vandalism.”

The PR damage and actual monetary loss to the studio has revived speculation in some quarters that Sony Corporation headquarters in Japan would push for a sale.

The cancelled release could cost the studio up to $200m before factoring in other costs resulting from the cyber attack and the inevitable security upgrade.

While these elements will have devalued Sony Pictures, Sony Corporation resisted a sale proposed by activist investor Daniel Loeb when the studio division’s value was considerably higher.

There is the view that the parent company would prefer to wait for the current PR disaster to pass were it minded to press ahead with a sale

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