What happens after a controversial comedy film agitates the North Korean government? In November 2014, a group of cyberterrorists hacked Sony Pictures. Countless company emails ultimately were leaked, resulting in embarrassing headlines for months. In our new three-part narrative series, host Brian Raftery examines this rare part of American history when showbiz, politics, the media, and technology collide. This is The Hollywood Hack.

The first episode is out now. The remaining two parts will be released on Wednesday and Friday.

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"On the morning of December 16, 2014, I was sitting in an office in midtown Manhattan, waiting for Seth Rogen and James Franco to show up. At the time, I was overseeing film coverage for a large digital news outlet, and the two actors were scheduled to drop by our studio to talk about The Interview, their forthcoming R-rated buddy comedy about a pair of American goofballs recruited by the CIA to assassinate a real-world figure: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Though barely anyone had seen it, The Interview was already the most controversial film of the year. An early teaser, released over the summer, had drawn angry protests from the North Korean government—a response that, in turn, caused concern within the offices of Sony Pictures, which was releasing the film. Yet no one could have predicted what happened next: In November 2014, Sony’s computer servers were hacked, and hundreds of thousands of company emails were leaked over the next several months, causing a nonstop barrage of embarrassing headlines. The alleged perpetrator? None other than North Korea itself."—Brian Raftery