Sony Pictures Entertainment's latest movie, "The Interview," has been downloaded over 750,000 times via torrents in mere 24-hours. That's quite impressive, but one should consider that the reason for this has a lot to do with how Sony Pictures released the film.
The film was released in only a few theaters in the United States, but not a single theater overseas. Furthermore, Sony Pictures Entertainment also chose to team up with Google and Microsoft to release the movie on their respective video streaming platforms. However, these video on demand services only allow for viewers within the United States to see the movie.
With so many restrictions, folks who are living outside of the U.S. were bound to seek out the torrent option to see what this film is all about. It is quite sad that a movie that was trending on Christmas Eve and on the day itself was only released in a single country.
Chances are other nations might have to wait for up to weeks or months before having the ability to view The Interview via legal channels. Still, we doubt the movie would have any effect because already the film has been bootlegged several times across the world in full HD quality. It simply means that folks who really wanted to get down with The Interview might have already done so and wouldn't care much if it was released in theaters tomorrow.
This should go down as another loss for Sony Pictures, and it also shows how incompetent the company is at problem solving. The Interview is going to cost Sony Pictures Entertainment a lot of money, and there is no way for the company to recoup that loss.
We've seen the film, and we can say that it certainly doesn't come off as anything spectacular. The praise it is getting is only because of the controversy, and we are sure that without hacking scandal and everything that follows after, The Interview would have been seen as a mediocre movie at best.
Let's hope Seth Rogen and James Franco make better choices the next time they choose to star in a movie together.
