Update on Sony and The Interview

In an about face, after Art House Convergence posted a letter to Sony expressing their desire to show the picture, Sony is allowing theatres, mostly Indies, to screen the movie The Interview on Christmas day.  The best guess is that the number of theatres that will offer it is around 200-300.  In addition, Sony is also offering it up on video on demand at the same time.  While this normally cuts into the box office numbers, given that the chains are not showing it, offering it on VOD at the same time it is being released into theatres likely won’t hurt ticket sales.  In fact, reports are that the web site of the Alamo Drafthouse, one of the Indie chains that is showing it in Dallas and other cities, was unavailable earlier today.  Not because of an attack, but rather because ticket buyers were swamping the web sites.

If ticket sales go well and there are no incidents, then the chains might start showing it early next year.  Likely, this is due to the challenges of scheduling screens and potentially bumping showings off screens that have already been scheduled.

Tim League, founder of Alamo Drafthouse, said their first move, after deciding to screen the movie, was to contact local police to plan for this.  Plans include training for all managers and staff, which seems like a good idea in any case.

Sony is still trying to contain the damage and is threatening to sue Twitter for not suspending the accounts of users who are tweeting damaging emails.  I am not sure if Twitter is scared or not, but so far, they have not suspended the account in question.

On the other side of the planet, North Korea has had three separate Internet outages in the last two days – two short ones and one 9 hour long one.  Who is responsible for these outages is unknown, but it appears likely the work of independent hackers.

Mitch

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