After finding success with their directorial debut, This is the End, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg quickly jumped to their follow-up, The Interview. While its premise — TV journalists who get involved in an assassination plot of Kim Jong Un, prime minister of North Korea — has been known since earlier last year, the release of the first teaser has caused the country to get in up in arms (although hopefully not literally) over the comedy.
Recently delayed from October to Christmas Day, we believed Sony’s decision was tied to potential box-office prospects, but now THR has provided a different reason. The trade reports that the studio is now digitally altering thousands of buttons that honor Kim Jong Un and his father Kim Jong Il worn by characters in the film, as their inclusion “would be considered blasphemous to the nuclear-armed nation.”
Earlier this summer a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman called the film “undisguised terrorism and a war action to deprive the service personnel and people of the DPRK of their mental mainstay and bring down its social system.” While the seems a bit harsh, Sony is contemplating removing a major scene in the film (spoilers ahead), one that features the face of Kim Jong Un (played by Randall Park in the feature) “melted off graphically in slow motion.”
It’d be unfortunate for Rogen and company to have to adjust their comedic vision due to this supposed controversy, so hopefully their original intentions stay intact. Regardless of what the final cut ends up being, like Rogen, we’re greatly looking forward to Kim Jong Un’s review. Check out the teaser below.
Do you think Sony should be adjusting the film?