It’s not been a great week for Sony, having been involved with a little email hack you may have read about. And it’s not going to get any better as the New York premiere for controversial comedy The Interview has been cancelled.
The announcement came from a spokesperson for Landmark’s Sunshine Cinema, in the wake of an ominous message from the Sony email hackers who promised a “9/11-style attack” on theatres showing the movie. The movie’s stars Seth Rogen and James Franco did attend the Los Angeles premiere last week, but have cancelled media appearances with Buzzfeed, Late Night with Seth Myers and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
In the action-comedy The Interview, Dave Skylark (James Franco) and his producer Aaron Rapoport (Seth Rogen) run the popular celebrity tabloid TV show “Skylark Tonight.” When they discover that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is a fan of the show, they land an interview with him in an attempt to legitimize themselves as journalists. As Dave and Aaron prepare to travel to Pyongyang, their plans change when the CIA recruits them, perhaps the two least-qualified men imaginable, to assassinate Kim Jong-un.
Los Angeles Police Department chief Charlie Beck said, “We take those threats very seriously, and we will take extra precautions during the holidays and at theaters.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, a producer at a rival studio is calling for Sony to pull the movie all-together. “This is bad for everyone. This will stop people from going to theaters, and that affects all of us,” the source said. “If somebody called a bomb threat for a concert, and it was credible, you’d have to cancel or postpone the concert.”
The Interview (should) open on Christmas Day in the States and February 6th in the UK, with a cast that also includes Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex), Randall Park (Sex Tape), Timothy Simons (Veep) and Charles Rahi Chun (Scrubs).
JohnGuest says
Off-topic but curious about the legalities of surrounding a real-life person with a bunch of fictional characters for the purpose of killing him or her in a work of fiction. If ‘The Interview’s’ antagonist was Obama, Putin, the Pope, Xi Jinping, Bill Gates or other living, real-life public figure, I have to believe the film would indeed be controversial.
I know Russians, in general, have been portrayed as bad guys over the years. The Chinese, mostly because of political and business reasons, are avoided. This film just seems to take it a step further by naming a specific leader of a country and outright blowing him up at the end (spoilers all over the internet).
Is this a first in the film industry?