One of the ways the company can achieve its goals is to sell a stake in Crackle. While Hopkins didn't refer to anything that hints at a sale in his letter, an email leaked as part of the massive Sony Pictures hack back in 2014 revealed the executives were thinking of selling 49 percent of the free service for $65 million.

Sony says Crackle apps have been downloaded over 100 million times, but it hasn't been doing well lately. Its Canadian version recently shut down, the company laid off a dozen employees in May and the service lost one of its most popular originals, Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, to Netflix. Finding a partner might the best way to turn the tide in its favor.

Here's the exec's email in full: