The Interview is the most-spoken about movie of the moment although the Christmas day marked the release of great box office scoring productions. The history of the Seth Rogen and James Franco action-comedy is probably the most controversial story in terms of ‘’ (not) to be released movies’’ of the past years. The Interview was at the brink of not being released due to North Korean threats towards the theaters airing the production, but eventually, the day of 24 December 2014 met with the release of the movie. The controversial production did not only greet its cinema-goers, but eventually topped streaming services like You Tube and got a fabulous number of illegal downloads in a short period of time.
In a recent article, CBS News reported that The Interview was illegally downloaded 750,000 times and implied that the ‘’almost’’ banned production was a symbol of free speech. Sony released the movie online Wednesday (a day before its original release date – 25 December) and has ever since proven that the fuss around the Kim Jong-un storm eventually won the movie tons of views and adepts. That The Interview scored as the top film on both You Tube Movies and Xbox Video is a strong argument in that regard: ‘’Official viewership numbers are not available, but more than 152,000 people left ratings of the movie across the sites.’’ You Tube wise, the ratings are reported to spread both positive and negative feedback from viewers, which offered ‘’112,000 thumbs up’’ and ‘’22,000 thumbs down’’ (numbers gathered from only US and Canada viewers).
The airing of the movie in a minor number of theaters, in comparison to a worldwide release as was initially settled, triggered the massive illegal downloading of the Seth Rogen comedy. According to Torrent Freak, The Interview was downloaded about 200,000 times though BitTorrent in the short time span of 10 hours from its availability and later on, the numbers reached an approximate number of 750,000 illegal downloads.
That The Interview created a real whirlpool in the cinematographic world is a true fact and involvement of names like George R. R. Martin in the solving of the issue is a strong argument in that regard. As the Game of Thrones creator insisted to emphasize, the highly commented on comedy might be a terrifying, horrible and a no-no watch for most movie-lovers. The scandal around the comedy was a real boost, but the picture behind the controversy might prove to be a disappointment – even IMDb switched their 10 to an 8.1 mark. Let’s see how much the movie will keep dropping and rising, now that the battle is officially on!