Movie 'The Interview' online release: Industry revolution or total fluke?

[Bomberboyokay]

With "The Interview" now online and available in a small handful of theaters, Sony managed to save face after a month of harsh criticism. But it may have also lit the fuse on a conversation Hollywood has been dreading for years.

The company on Wednesday released the film on YouTube, Google Play, Xbox and through its own dedicated website, SeeTheInterview.com, after pulling it from a wide theater release last week due to threats of violence against movie chains. The controversial comedy about bumbling journalists trying to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un has been at the center of an ongoing debacle following devastating hacks on Sony's film division in late November.

While critics have mostly panned the movie, "The Interview" is notable as the first major film that moviegoers were able to watch online ahead of its theatrical release. At $7 to rent and $15 to purchase, you can see it online for less than on the big screen at one of the 300 or so small theaters showing it in the US.

The weird, winding path this film has followed in the past few weeks makes it anything but a normal distribution experiment, and we shouldn't expect other studios to follow suit anytime soon. Yet the impact of a Hollywood film arriving online a day before its release and in a tiered pricing model that is consumer-friendly is raising the question: At what point will Hollywood be forced to face its dysfunctional relationship with the Internet?...

http://www.cnet.com/news/the-interview-online-release-industry-revolution-or-total-fluke/

 

[Exe Gesis]

And there's the conspiracy theory!

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Was this a false flag?

 

[Bluelegs]

Was this a false flag?

Neither the hacks or North Koreas threats were faked. US intelligence confirmed the hacks and said they were North Korean originated. The US had no reason to either fake the hacks on Sony or fake that intelligence, they didn't really have anything to gain from helping Sony sell their new movie.

The only thing I would be skeptical of is the intent of Sony upon pulling The Interview in the first place. The most obvious scenario and also the most likely is that Sony were legitimately hacked by a free agent working for North Korea. North Korea gave out threats and threatened cinemas into not showing the film. After enough cinemas pulled out Sony figured their next move, which was to pull the move for a couple of weeks get a global discussion going and then do an alternate release in which they managed to get screenings at participating cinemas and online. North Korea give out terrorism threats and war threats like they're giving out lollies, they love to sword-rattle because they are sent foreign aid when they do so.

Honestly it feels like this was just Sony making the best of a bad situation. Of course they always intended to release the movie but they needed to work out how to do so and when they saw how much free publicity this kind of story was going to get they took the opportunity by the balls and went with it. Then two weeks later they released the film alternatively and everyone was dying to see it.

Really no amount of publicity is worth Sony pretending to hack itself, release false terrorist threats, pull their movie from 90% of American cinemas and do an online release that suffers from a stagnated launch which in turn raises the piracy of the film. With all these issues the movie might not even make much money and become one of the most pirated films ever.

The only worry is that lobbyists will use this to relaunch their draconian bills to give copyright holders more control over the internet.