Less than a week after announcing that it wouldn’t show “The Interview,” Sony changed its mind.
Sony’s “The Interview” Is Coming to a Few Theaters, After All
Two theaters say they’ll show the movie North Korea hates, starting on Christmas Day.
Columbia Pictures
Peter Kafka covered media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.
The studio now says it will show the movie in a “limited theatrical release” starting on Christmas day. So far two theaters — in Atlanta and Austin, Texas — have announced via Twitter that they will start screening the movie on Thursday.
That’s a turnabout from last week, when Sony said it wouldn’t show “The Interview” in the wake of a devastating Internet attack, which the company and the U.S. believe was launched by North Korea.
Meanwhile, some news outlets are reporting that Sony may also release the film via a video-on-demand service, but there are no details about which outlet Sony thinks it will use. In a statement, Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton said the company was looking to “secure more platforms” for the film.
“We have never given up on releasing ‘The Interview’ and we’re excited our movie will be in a number of theaters on Christmas Day,” Lynton said. “At the same time, we are continuing our efforts to secure more platforms and more theaters so that this movie reaches the largest possible audience.”
The news comes days after Lynton said that his studio was unable to show the movie in the U.S. because major theater chains had announced they wouldn’t show the controversial film, and because Sony didn’t have the ability to stream the movie online itself.
Sony does own Crackle, a free, ad-supported video-streaming service; its parent company also operates a video-on-demand service for its PlayStation gaming consoles.
Tim League, the founder of the independent Alamo Drafthouse theater in Austin, announced that his theater would show the movie on Christmas Day, as did the Plaza Atlanta theater.
https://twitter.com/timalamo/status/547435347882553344
https://twitter.com/PlazaAtlanta/status/547264694034378752
And here’s a celebration from Seth Rogen, the comedian who co-stars and co-directed the movie:
https://twitter.com/Sethrogen/status/547453144209178626
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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