WEEK FOUR December 17th, 2014
Sony Cancels Theatrical Release for ‘The Interview’ on Christmas
https://variety.com/2014/film/news/sony-cancels-theatrical-release-for-the-interview-on-christmas-1201382032/
Sony Cancels Theatrical Release for 'The Interview' on Christmas. (2014, December 17). Retrieved December 17, 2014
The Interview is a movie about two men who run a celebrity tabloid show. Surprisingly, they land an interview with a huge fan, who just happens to be Kim Jong-un, the dictator of North Korea. The CIA find out about this interview, so they recruit these men and turn their trip to North Korea into an "assassination mission." From just knowing about the plot, it's clear that this movie is taking a huge risk by having December 25th as its release date. Just last month, Sony got hacked and there were messages going around violently threatening movie theaters and moviegoers who were planning on distributing/seeing the movie. Sony got their control back after a little while, but damage had already been done. They immediately took action on what to do because of these violent threats. As a result, they have delayed the release of the movie, as they want moviegoers to have a safe holiday season. Sony put out this statement:
“We are deeply saddened at this brazen effort to suppress the distribution of a movie, and in the process do damage to our company, our employees, and the American public. We stand by our filmmakers and their right to free expression and are extremely disappointed by this outcome.”
"Sony has been reeling for weeks since hackers broke into the studio’s computer system in November and stole internal documents, email messages, film budgets, spreadsheets detailing top executive salaries and the social security numbers of thousands of employees. The documents and records were subsequently leaked online, setting off a firestorm of media coverage." The message that the hackers sent out threatened theaters that were planning on showing the movie, as well as moviegoers who planned on seeing the movie. "The bulk of the country’s 10 largest theater chains — a group that includes AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Carmike and Southern Theatres — announced they would delay showing the picture or would drop it altogether. In statements, many of the theater chains suggested that Sony’s lack of confidence in the film prompted their decision."
When I went to the movie theaters not too long ago, I saw a trailer for The Interview, and I immediately thought, "What?" I knew that making a movie like that and distributing it to the public is a huge risk, and possible mistake. Why even take that chance of creating such a controversial movie? Is it really worth it? After those threats were made, I completely understand why Sony has chosen to cancel the release of the movie. They have to make sure that all moviegoers are safe, so they really had no choice when it came to the matter. I still think that making a movie with such a controversial plot is just a bad idea. Those threats made this whole situation an extremely serious matter, and it really should give all film production companies a wake-up call that they should stick to films that aren't involved with such political controversy. This really just emphasizes the fact that the spread of film production and distribution is very important to how it's received by the public. This was an awful thing that happened, and it's just good that a lot of theater chains are delaying the release of the movie, if not dropping it completely. This movie probably wouldn't have been well-received by the public by the time it came out, anyway, since it's so extremely controversial. This is really for the best.
I disagree that the video being pulled is bad idea. All though the movie has a lot of controversy surrounding it, Kim Jung Un is a terrible terrible man who brainwashes his citizens and is a control freak and would love to destroy America so I believe a movie making fun of him is actually and fun idea and very brave of Seth Rogan and James Franco.
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