Controversial Comedy

usatoday.com

Controversy has surrounded the new film The Interview set to be released on December 25th by Sony Pictures Entertainment. The film is directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen who have collaborated on hilariously inappropriate movies such as Superbad, Knocked Up, and Pineapple Express. It seems that The Interview, which is a comedy about an assassination attempt on Kim Jon-un,  may be the film where they have finally pushed their humor little bit too far... at least according to North Korea.

At the beginning of December, Sony Entertainment experienced a hack on an unprecedented scale. According to Yahoo:

The hacking has left Sony reeling. Personal information of its 3,803 employees has leaked online, along with a spreadsheet purportedly listing salaries of top studio executives. Five of the studio's films...turned up on the Internet, where they have been widely pirated... A threatening email was sent to employees warning them and their families of 'danger.' A group calling itself Guardians for Peace has taken credit for the attack, and there has been speculation that North Korea might be involved in the hacking as retaliation for The Interview, an upcoming Sony comedy about a plot to assassinate the country's leader Kim Jung-un starring Seth Rogen and James Franco.

The Guardians of Peace warned Sony to stop "immediately showing the movie of terrorism which can break the regional peace and cause the war." North Korea denied involvement in Sony's hacking but a spokesperson for the country's National Defense Commission said it "might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers" of North Korea. "We do not know where in America Sony Pictures is situated or for what wrongdoings it became the target of the attack... But what we clearly know is that the Sony Pictures is the very one which was going to produce a film abetting a terrorist attack while hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership..."

Randall Park plays Kim Jung-un
www.bbc.com

According to BBC News "the North Korea spokesman was quoted by the state KCNA news agency as saying 'Making and releasing a movie on a plot to hurt our top-level leadership is the most blatant act of terrorism and war and will absolutely not be tolerated."

Sony Pictures was clearly frightened and called a meeting in which the company asked its employees whether it should go ahead with plans for the film before continuing to work on its release. Sony also made sure that The Interview was  toned down, and special attention was paid to a scene that apparently depicted Kim Jung-un's head exploding.

The Interview did go ahead and held its premier last night with heightened security and without a traditional red carpet. Seth Rogen took to twitter with a sense of humor: "People don't normally wanna kill me for one of my movies until after they've paid 12 bucks for it."