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The number one thing that a corporation has to avoid above all else is to be hated. Not just disliked or evolved away from, but really reviled. People still equate Exxon with the Valdez, and BP with the oil spill. The people who run the company work for the shareholders, and if they ruin the brand, they get fired. The result is that, a lot of the time, they play public-opinion defense; that's why Aflac canned Gilbert Gottfried, that's why the NFL is cracking down on wife-beaters, and that's why just about everyone is getting the hell away from Bill Cosby now that he's so toxic.
And all of those things pale in comparison to the bad juju they theater chains would have to eat if they ran The Interview, and someone shot up or bombed one of its showings. Every paper, every 24-hours news station, every website and blog, and every Twitter hound would drag their name through the mud, and their stock would bottom out overnight. Then, they'd get sued.
After the four chains dropped out, Sony sure wasn't going to risk their already-precarious future on a stoner comedy. Of course they bailed on it; it is a terrible Rubicon to cross in terms of homeland security and free speech and American freedom, but as a business decision, they probably felt that they had to.
No corporation will take an F-U attitude, nor will they stand up for what's right. They stand up for what makes them money. That's what they do. That's all they do. That's also what they will keep doing.
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