America Takes Controversial Risk
Sony pictures is sitting in a strong position right now on their piles of money as their recently released movie, “The Interview” has reached an impressive $18 million dollar gross opening period.
Online sales alone on Youtube made $15 million and the movie was rented and downloaded over two million times. Not including the limited release of the movie in theaters which made the other $2.8 million in box office sales. That also doesn’t include the thousands of copies illegally downloaded and any other websites it can be bought from, like iTunes or Xbox Video.
Let’s just say “The Interview” is Sony Pictures’ most watched and more popular movie at the moment.
It might not be worth it, in the long run though. The reason that this movie has blown through the roof in demand is due to the controversy between North Korea and the U.S. Having heard of and most likely seen the movie, the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, was not very pleased to find out that Sony had made a movie depicting his death. As would anyone, he had a valid reason to be upset.
America is the only country that would blatantly make a movie about a supreme leader that could very well threaten us with nuclear weapons and not feel any remorse for it. Even after Kim Jong Un called our president a “monkey” and told us not to release the movie, or there would be consequences, it was still released.
That doesn’t make him any better than us, though. His threats to us, and our threats to him through the movie, prove that neither of the countries are better than the other. Both made a childish move and got nowhere with the dispute. That’s why there is a huge debate over the whole film. One side says it’s offensive and that being rude towards someone like Kim crosses the line. The other side says, “Hey it’s just a movie.” None of what happened in the movie actually happened and it should be taken lightly, as it would any other comedy motion picture.
When you put aside the fact that it is a movie and all the what ifs, it is a literal cry for attention on America’s part. We poked at the bear and now that he is mad, we act surprised, as if that wasn’t going to happen.
This film could have been taken in so many different directions and should have been thought out better. The hype of it all and the success that Sony has gained from “The Interview” does not compare to the fact that the movie itself was morally offensive.
