Sony announced today that
"The Interview" will be available online today via Google
Play, YouTube Movies, Microsoft’s Xbox Video and a site
www.seetheinterview.com, for $5.99 rental on all platforms, $14.99 for purchase
in HD.
“It has always been Sony’s intention to have a
national platform on which to release this film,” said Sony CEO Michael Lynton
in a release to ABC News. “With that in mind, we reached out to Google,
Microsoft and other partners last Wednesday, December 17th, when it became
clear our initial release plans were not possible. We are pleased we can now
join with our partners to offer the film nation-wide today."
Lynton said his company never
stopped "pursuing as wide a release as possible" for the film that
looked like it was dead as of last week when all the big move chains like AMC and Regal had backed out of showing the film
due to hacker threats.
"Especially given the assault
upon our business and our employees by those who wanted to stop free speech. We
chose the path of digital distribution first so as to reach as many people as
possible on opening day, and we continue to seek other partners and platforms to
further expand the release,” he continued.
He thanked Google and Microsoft for
their commitment to "free speech."
"While we couldn't have
predicted the road this movie traveled to get to this moment, I’m proud our
fight was not for nothing and that cyber criminals were not able to silence
us," he added.
The statement closed by stating that
in addition to online, "'The Interview' is also being released in more
than 300 United States theaters on Dec. 25.
Google's chief legal officer David
Drummond wrote in a blog post, "Last Wednesday Sony began contacting a
number of companies, including Google, to ask if we’d be able to make their
movie, 'The Interview,' available online."
"We'd had a similar thought and
were eager to help -- though given everything that’s happened, the security
implications were very much at the front of our minds," Drummond wrote.
"Of course it was tempting to hope that something else would happen to
ensure this movie saw the light of day. But after discussing all the issues,
Sony and Google agreed that we could not sit on the sidelines and allow a
handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country
(however silly the content might be)."
After the news broke, the film's
star Seth Rogen tweeted "Thanks Sony for making it happen. Booyah."
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