After having most of their new movies and personal emails leaked by North Korean hackers, and being threatened with violence, Sony Pictures decided last night to cancel the upcoming release of The Interview. I know you’ve probably already heard all of that, but I figured I’d do a quick recap before we jump into the meat of this post. The complete story, as reported by Variety …
“Sony Pictures has no further release plans for the film,” a spokesman said Wednesday. The studio issued the statement a few hours after pulling the planned Christmas Day release of The Interview in the U.S. in response to the hackers who threatened a 9/11-style attack against U.S. theaters and moviegoers if the comedy were released. By late Wednesday afternoon, the studio had removed any mention of “The Interview” from its official web site. The move could open the door for Sony to sell the rights to a rival distributor — though Hollywood is still reeling from Tuesday’s invocation of a possible terrorist attack on exhibitors if they screened “The Interview.”
For the sake of argument, I’m going to go down the line and talk about everyone involved in this …
Sony Pictures
Honestly, I’m a little disappointed that they had to pull the movie, but also don’t blame them a bit. They basically got the sh!t kicked out of them this month, and cutting their losses seems like an entirely human thing to do. Not to mention most of the pressure came from movie theaters refusing to show the movie, which brings us to …
The Theaters
Once again, a little disappointed in the situation, but otherwise blameless. It’s not like movie theaters are massive, well-guarded structure that could prepare for the possibility of a terrorist attack. A lot of them are small, honest venues who just don’t want to be blown up because they did a $5 Tuesday matinee.
Seth Rogen and James Franco
Honestly, I’m really hoping they get like a mini-Oscar at The Academy Awards or something. I don’t think they did so intentionally, but they probably just made one of the few actually political movies in years. One that actually had real world geo-political consequences. They deserve a little taste of the pudding for that one.
Kim Jong-Un
Sucks. Is the worst. Your country’s infrastructure is in shambles and you have a serious problem even being able to feed everyone in your country, and you’re going to focus your energy on the two meanies who made fun of you in a stoner movie? Really? Look, I regularly rag on the rich and famous, but at least they have a sense of humor enough to let it roll of their shoulders. Kim Jong-Un threw a hissy fit and had cyber-terrorists threaten people with violence, fear and humiliation until he got his way. What an asshole. So here, let’s watch him get blown up in a slow-mo helicopter explosion. And the moment this movie hits Netflix and other streaming services, let’s watch the sh!t out of it.
The ironic part is, if Kim Jong-Un wanted people to not watch this movie, he kind of failed; Now everyone is going to see this.