The Interview, the latest comedy starring James Franco and Seth Rogen as two undercover assassins with the task of eliminating North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, will no longer see the light of day. In the wake of a series of hacks against Sony Pictures and terror threats made against theaters that might show the film, Sony has decided The Interview will not be released in any way, shape or form.
U.S. officials now confirm that North Korea is likely in some way behind the hacks and threats, though more details aren't known at this time. But what if The Interview hadn't been specifically about North Korea or Kim Jong-un? Could all this controversy have been avoided? Originally the film wasn't.
Speaking with Creative Screenwriting, The Interview screenwriter Dan Sterling says the original idea for the film didn't involve North Korea in any way. According to Sterling, it at first revolved around the idea of "what if a journalist scored an interview with Osama Bin Laden?"
"Sasha (Baron Cohen) was getting ready with The Dictator, so he sort of cornered the market on Middle Eastern tyranny jokes around that time," Sterling says. "I went and wrote the script with a fake name and fake country, but after discussing the project with Seth, Evan (Goldberg, Rogen's collaborator) and the executives at Sony, we decided I ought to try writing it with Kim Jong-un. Once it was in there, we knew it was the way to go."
Sterling also talks about Jong-un's character in the film. While North Korea took the film's plot as "an act of war," Sterling says he attempted to portray the dictator as more than a stereotypical villain.
"I didn't want to make him two-dimensional or a stereotypical James Bond villain dictator," Sterling says. "Randall Park (who won the role) walked into the audition and played him as shy and self-depreciating, which was surprising and funny. We knew we wanted to hire Randall; we liked his take on the character."
Sterling goes on to say that he made it an important point of the film not to glamorize assassination. In fact, he thinks the film is actually about the opposite.
"The movie is intended to make fun of a lot of things - including the CIA, America's obsession with celebrity journalism, and so on," he says. "So this wasn't meant to be a statement of any kind."
Maybe if the government of North Korea actually watched the film they might enjoy it. After all, isn't making fun of America right up their alley?
