Sony's hacked emails between studio chair Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin expose racial jokes about Obama

Scott Rudin, the high-powered producer at the center of the latest embarrassment stemming from the Sony hacking scandal, has apologized for remarks he made in leaked emails, The Associated Press reports.

In the series of private emails obtained by Gawker and Buzzfeed this week, Rudin, corresponding with Sony Pictures Entertainmentco-chairman Amy Pascal, called "Unbroken" director Angelina Jolie a "spoiled brat" and made jokes about President Barack Obama's race and presumed taste in movies.

In a statement to trade website Deadline Rudin said that the private emails were written in haste and the content was intended to be in jest. He acknowledged that the statements were insensitive and thoughtless and offered regret and apologies to those he had offended.

Representatives for Rudin and Sony did not immediately respond to the AP's request for comment.

In the latest round of hacked memos and emails from Sony Pictures, studio chair Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin traded racially charged remarks about President Obama's movie preferences.

"What should I ask the president at this stupid Jeffrey breakfast?" Pascal asked Rudin, referring to a Democratic fundraiser hosted by DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, in excerpts released by Buzzfeed.com.

"Would he like to finance some movies?" replied Rudin, a producer since the 1980s, whose films include "The Social Network," "Captain Phillips" and such indies as Jon Stewart's "Rosewater."

"I doubt it," said Pascal. "Should I ask him if he liked 'Django [Unchained]'?," Quentin Tarantino's 2012 film starring Jamie Foxx as a vengeful ex-slave in the Old West.

" '12 Years [a Slave]?' " Rudin wrote back. Pascal, adding to the line of African-American-themed films, responded, "Or 'The Butler.' Or 'Think Like a Man'?"

" 'Ride Along,' " wrote back Rudin. "I bet he likes Kevin Hart," the African-American comedian who co-starred in that film with rapper-actor Ice Cube.

BuzzFeed noted that Pascal is an Obama supporter who contributed $5,000 to his re-election campaign and $30,800 to the Democratic National Committee, citing OpenSecrets.org, the website of the research group The Center for Responsive Politics.

The embarrassing emails come in the wake of recently released exchanges between Rudin and Pascal in which the Sony chair referred to film star and "Unbroken" director Angelina Jolie as "a minimally talented spoiled brat" in a diatribe about Jolie objecting to David Fincher having chosen to direct Rudin's upcoming Steve Jobs biographical drama "Jobs" rather than her own Cleopatra project.

Sony declined to comment to BuzzFeed and Rudin did not respond to the site's request. Sony did not respond to a request from The Hollywood Reporter.

Sony did not immediately respond to a Newsday request for comment. Rudin did not respond to a request from BuzzFeed.

-with AP