After having been rented or purchased online and through cable, satellite, and various other providers more than 5.8 million times to the tune of $40 million dollars, the controversial comedy The Interview will be made available to Netflix subscribers this Saturday, January 24!
The news came via a letter sent out to Netflix shareholders, in which the following was stated:
We are thrilled to offer exclusively the controversial comedy, The Interview, to our US and Canadian members beginning this Saturday, Jan. 24 – just thirty days after it debuted in theaters and pay-per-view. Our first original feature film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon II: The Green Destiny, is now in post production and will debut on August 26 in all of our markets. We expect to open the film on select IMAX screens the same day as its release on Netflix.
Like the initial on-demand rollout, this move represents perhaps the shortest window from theatrical to Netflix for a major studio release. With major theater chains unwilling to show The Interview due to the North Korea hacking scandal, the film has only grossed $6 million dollars in a small number of independent theaters.
In the action-comedy The Interview, Dave Skylark (James Franco) and his producer Aaron Rapoport (Seth Rogen) run the popular celebrity tabloid TV show ‘Skylark Tonight.’ When they discover that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is a fan of the show, they land an interview with him in an attempt to legitimize themselves as journalists. As Dave and Aaron prepare to travel to Pyongyang, their plans change when the CIA recruits them, perhaps the most unlikely candidates, to ‘take out’ Kim Jong-un.
