Richard Roeper: If you want to see ‘The Interview’ — now you can

SHARE Richard Roeper: If you want to see ‘The Interview’ — now you can

When Sony Pictures announced last week it wouldn’t be showing “The Interview” in theaters, I heard from a few conspiracy theorists that said this was all a publicity stunt.

Now that Sony is authorizing Christmas Day screenings in a few markets (and most likely a Video On Demand release as well), I’m still gonna say I don’t think the North Korean government, rogue hackers, the largest theater chains in North America, Sony Pictures, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Kim Jong-un and Dennis Rodman all got together and mapped out a strategy to maximize publicity for a relatively small social satire.

I think having Rogen and Franco do the talk show and premiere circuit would done just fine.

“We have never given up on releasing ‘The Interview’ and we’re excited our movie will be in a number of theaters on Chritsmas Day,” said Sony Chairman Michael Lynton in a statement.

The Plaza Theater in Atlanta said it will be one of the theaters showing the film. Tim League of the Alamo Drafthouse Theaters tweeted he’ll “be making shows available [in Austin, Tx.] within the hour.” (As of this writing, I don’t have confirmation of any Chicago-area screenings.)

Not sure how many moviegoers will now skip “Into the Woods” for “The Interview,” but at least now if you want to see it, you’re going to be able to see it.

No word from Sony about the reasoning behind this change of heart. Maybe it was the fact that even the president of the United States said they were making a mistake in declining to release it. Maybe they finally realized if you cave once to a threat, you’re already on one knee and someone’s probably going to threaten you again — and if you keep on pulling movies from theaters because of threats, you might as well stop making movies.

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