“‘The Interview,’ the raucous comedy that became the center of a dispute over cybersecurity between the United States and North Korea, will be released in a small number of theaters on Christmas Day after all, Sony Pictures said on Tuesday,” Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply report for The New York Times.
“Sony also left open the door to video-on-demand availability of the movie, either simultaneously with its debut in theaters, or nearly so,” Barnes and Cieply report. “In announcing the new plan on Tuesday, Michael Lynton, Sony Pictures’ chairman, said his studio was continuing efforts ‘to secure more platforms and more theaters so that this movie reaches the largest possible audience.'”
“‘Freedom has prevailed! Sony didn’t give up!’ Seth Rogen, who co-directed, co-wrote and co-stars in ‘The Interview,’ wrote on Twitter,” Barnes and Cieply report. “It remained unclear, however, whether any on-demand service would take ‘The Interview.’ According to people briefed on the matter, Sony had in recent days asked the White House for help in lining up a single technology partner — Apple, which operates iTunes — but the tech company was not interested, at least not on a speedy time table. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Major mistake – unless Apple wants to continue to ignore Apple TV. This is free promotion! Apple should stand up artists’ freedom of expression. They should be pouncing on this. Hopefully, their disinterest is only being feigned as a negotiating tactic.
Do it, Apple. What are you going to lose, the vibrant North Korea market?
If they do, Apple can expect to take a BIG hit on their North Korean iPhone 6S sales….;-)
Not to mention that this could be the biggest proof of concept of home releases on par with theaters.
Do it Apple!
I think the Christmas Day timing is the problem. Apple servers are always stretched on Christmas Day, and you don’t want everyone who got an Apple product for Christmas to be disappointed. Actually, there is a high probability of problems already, without adding a high demand movie to the bandwidth.
You’re so full of it. Just another excuser
While I usually agree with MDN’s take I can see Apple’s position on this. Apple has over 300+ retail stores around the world serving millions of customers. While taking a stand sounds emotionally like the right thing to do I can appreciate Apple’s position on this. Being the largest technology company brings certain responsibilities. This isn’t the Apple of the 1980’s anymore.
Yep, Apple is a huge corporation that is beholding to it’s shareholders, not a rock band who can act wild and crazy. I’d love to rent the movie on my Apple TV, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it.
The movie sucks anyway.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_interview_2014/?search=the%20interview
Sony better hope some On-Demand source takes it on quick. Once word of mouth begins to spread after Xmas no one is going to pay anything to see it.
Apple doesn’t want the movie because it’s SETH ROGEN.
Apple could probably care less about pissing North Korea off by releasing the film on iTunes. Pissing China (North Korea’s biggest ally) off is a different story.
China may be North Korea’s only remaining ally, but even they are fuming over the increasingly belligerent moves by the ridiculous little dictator. One of the Chinese generals (with an impeccable party standing) wrote a scathing article about the North Koreans:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/world/asia/chinese-annoyance-with-north-korea-bubbles-to-the-surface.html
About the only thing preventing Chinese from completely abandoning and isolating North Korea is the possibility that, if NK government collapses, there will be Korean reunification, with a strong pivot towards the US. Between the two evils, at present, Chinese consider the belligerent NK a lesser evil, but that is not so certain anymore, as can be evidenced in the Chinese state/party mainstream media, which shows the increasing annoyance with the young Kim and his little fiefdom.
Everyone could care less, the proper wording is Apple could NOT care less. Think about it.
So Google Play, YouTube Movies and Xbox are all going offer it on-demand but Apple said no. The world opinion was that Sony was a coward and caved. Now independent theaters and the above VOD look courageous. I can understand the case against Apple taking part, but they are going to take a big black eye as a result.
Not really; the black eye, if any, would have been on Sony for caving. Apple has never really been a medium for distribution of first-run feature films. Putting a major film on Apple TV that has not yet even seen its theatrical release would be without precedent, so I can’t see Apple getting a black eye for not setting a precedent. About the worst that can happen is that they would be called out for missing out on the initiative where others have gone along with it.
Let us not forget, theoretically, there are still risks. North Korea has threatened massive terrorist action if the film gets released. While CIA/NSA claim that those threats can safely be ignored (i.e. NK has always been all bark and no bite), no public company in their sane mind can afford a risk of such nature. While the rewards could be handsome (now that everybody wants to see this film, even if it isn’t all that great), if anything at all happens and lives are lost because of the film being distributed, SONY (and the others involved in the decision-making) will be wiped out.
That’s a big fat NO!!!!!!!
MacDailyNews you feel exactly how I feel. They could have made a killing by getting from Sony a give it to us for free. It would have been better than the free album from U2 that half of all iTunes users did not want.
And what a way to generate steam by getting the world to talk about an R-rated 2nd-class, so-called black comedy and probably a B movie at best by Hollywierd and try to get us into another world war.
Now what will they come up with next to promote the next piece of garbage to come from Hollywood, CA?
Paint the scenarios…and stop falling so easily into the hands of the4 manipulators, okay? Make it a New Year’s Resolution.
Hmmm. I could be wrong, but wasn’t Sony a founding member of Ultraviolet (a competing streaming format meant to kneecap iTunes potential dominance of movies)? UV is the “digital locker” for VUDU, Cinemanow, TargetTicket and Sony Video Unlimited. All of these services already offer a rental / purchase option. If their system is supposedly so much better, why did they even need to ask Apple? And why in the world would Apple even consider risking any potential fallout to help a studio / company that constantly shortchanges the consumer by not offering an iTunes digital copy (instead of just UV) included with most Blu-Rays?