According to sources at the New York Post, Sony's current plan is to release the controversial film, "The Interview", on its own streaming service for free. If rumors are correct, the movie would be distributed via Sony's streaming service, Crackle.com. This information has yet been confirmed by Sony officials.
After reports of President Obama mentioning that he thinks Sony made a mistake by yanking the movie, Sony began looking into alternative ways to distribute the film.
"There are a number of options open to us, and we have considered those and are considering those. As it stands right now, while there have been a number of suggestions... there has not been one major VOD distributor [or] one major e-commerce site that has stepped forward and said they're willing to distribute this movie for us... Again we don't have that direct interface with the American public."
Not long after the initial statement, TheVerge updated their article with another follow-up response from Sony:
Sony Pictures Entertainment is and always has been strongly committed to the First Amendment. For more than three weeks, despite brutal intrusions into our company and our employees’ personal lives, we maintained our focus on one goal: getting the film The Interview released. Free expression should never be suppressed by threats and extortion.
The decision not to move forward with the December 25 theatrical release of The Interview was made as a result of the majority of the nation’s theater owners choosing not to screen the film. This was their decision.
Let us be clear – the only decision that we have made with respect to release of the film was not to release it on Christmas Day in theaters, after the theater owners declined to show it. Without theaters, we could not release it in the theaters on Christmas Day. We had no choice.
After that decision, we immediately began actively surveying alternatives to enable us to release the movie on a different platform. It is still our hope that anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so.
It appears that because no major online distributor has stepped forward, distributors like Netflix or Amazon for example, Sony may be planning to release the film using its own distribution platform instead. The move would make use of the extensive media attention demonstrated in the past few weeks and should satisfy previously upset fans who are looking forward to watching the movie.
This article will be updated once the rumor is either officially confirmed or denied. If Sony does release this movie via Crackle, will you watch it?
Source: NYPost | The Verge | Image credits by NYPost.com
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