If we’ve learned anything from Sony’s recently released movie “The Interview,” it’s that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un can handle a joke about as well as Miley Cyrus can handle, well, herself.
The film, directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogan, centers around TV talk show host Dave Skylark, played by James Franco, and Aaron Rapoport, played by Rogan. Skylark hosts a show called “Skylark Tonight,” where he interviews celebrities about their personal lives and gossip surrounding them.
After a celebration of the shows 1000th episode, Skylark and his crew are surprised to learn Kim Jong Un is a big fan of their show. After discovering this, Aaron, the show’s producer, schedules an interview with Kim. After the CIA catches wind of this, agents meet with Dave and Aaron and asks them to participate in a plan to assassinate the dictator.
The movie went through many controversial experiences before finally being released because, as one would expect, the North Korean government didn’t take lightly to the fact that the U.S. wanted to release a movie depicting the murder of its leading official.
The largest controversy came last November, when an anonymous group calling themselves Guardians of Peace hacked Sony’s network and released several upcoming films by Sony, including “Still Alice,” “Mr. Turner, ” “To Write Love on Her Arms” and “Annie.”
The hackers even went as far as to threaten those who went to see “The Interview,” promising to bomb the movie’s New York premiere and any other theater that showed it.
One exerpt from the email read, “We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places ‘The Interview’ be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to. Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear. Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)”
After receiving these threats and much controversy, on Sony cancelling the Dec. 17 premiere, along with showings at other theater chains such as American Multi-Cinema (AMC) and Cinemark.
This may have hindered the project, but this is America, and as Americans we don’t take kindly to other countries telling us what we can and can’t do.
Many people responded in outrage to Sony pulling the movie.
President Barack Obama was unhappy with Sony’s choice to pull the interview.
The studio’s handling of the hack was the first question White House press corps asked Obama at the annual year-in-review press conference.
He responded, “We cannot have a society in which some dictator in some place can start imposing censorship in the United States. I wish they’d spoken to me first. I would have told them: Do not get into the pattern in which you are intimidated.”
This must have been enough motivation for Sony to release the film, because it released the movie in the U.S. on Dec. 24 through streaming services such as Google Play and YouTube.
