Once again, the terrorists have won. Sony Pictures announced this week that after receiving threats, it would pull “The Interview” from theaters. Nate Silver estimates that the studio will lose out on around $100 million. The American people will lose out on nothing because if we’re all being honest with ourselves, it looked like an awful movie anyways.
—Digg
Not everyone thinks the movie is quite that bad. The New Yorker reviews it here.
The thing that I find most interesting is that a human rights group was planning to airlift DVDs of the movie into North Korea using hydrogen balloons. And this is not a new activity (the following lines were written before Sony decided not to release the movie):
Fighters for a Free North Korea, run by Park Sang Hak, a former government propagandist who escaped to South Korea, has for years used balloons to get transistor radios, DVDs and other items into North Korea — not to entertain the deprived masses, but to introduce them to the outside world.
In the past two years, the Human Rights Foundation in New York, created by Thor Halvorssen, has been helping bankroll the balloon drops, with the next one set for January. The Interview likely won’t be out on DVD then, but Halvorssen says he’ll add copies as soon as possible. Halvorssen, whose group also finances the smuggling of DVD players into North Korea, says that the past dozen or so drops have included copies of movies and TV shows like Braveheart, Battlestar Galactica and Desperate Housewives. Anything with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone is also popular.
“Viewing any one of these is a subversive act that could get you executed, and North Koreans know this, given the public nature of the punishments meted out to those who dare watch entertainment from abroad,” Halvorssen says.
“Despite all of that there is a huge thirst for knowledge and information from the outside world,” he says. “North Koreans risk their lives to watch Hollywood films … and The Interview is tremendously threatening to the Kims. They cannot abide by anything that portrays them as anything other than a god. This movie destroys the narrative.”
Who would have guessed? It will be interesting to see if Sony ever releases the film.
December 21, 2014
Sony should not be underestimated. I am sure that there will be an appropriate response very soon.
Yes, they’re trying to figure out how to distribute it and make money. It should do fine — the publicity has been invaluable.
I heard the movie is not very good, so when it IS shown, it will bring in more money than it would have.
Agreed!
this reminds me of that cartoonist from the netherlands i believe . . .
he literally went into hiding for his life for many years from death threats.
what a terrifyingly sad place to live . . . north korea.
as if their climate and terrain weren’t bad enough.
I’m guessing this won’t happen here, but who knows. It will be interesting to see, to say the least!
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-interview-makes-96m-in-online-rentals-and-downloads-in-a-matter-of-days-9947687.html?utm_source=indynewsletter&utm_medium=email29122014