The Interview was notoriously mired with controversy, but the outrage didn't arrive until much later than the film's inception. The single event that caused the biggest ripples was, in reality, the release of the film's trailer in June 2014.
The idea for The Interview first sprung up in the early 2000s, when directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg joked about the urban legend of reporters being ordered to assassinate a major dictator. The script was rewritten numerous times until it was decided that North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-Un was the best target. Principal photography lasted until December 2013, still without major coverage about the film's sensitive nature.
This all changed, however, as the trailer was released on June 11, 2014. The public had never before seen the antics of James Franco and Seth Rogen in the satirical romp, and the trailer showed plenty of ridicule and infidelity for North Korea's beloved leader (joking about how he has manipulated his people into thinking he doesn't urinate or defecate). The North Korean government, who at first responded with vocal criticism, quickly took to threats of retaliation against the United States if the film saw a wide release.
Because Sony had not yet released footage of their new movie, The Interview's potential for controversy stayed largely unnoticed during the film's development. The trailer allowed both American and North Korean audiences to see and hear the film's plot on mass media outlets such as YouTube and Twitter. The visual and auditory stimulation that the trailer provided made the controversy much more widespread and open for criticism.
And as we all know, controversy... tastes like chicken.
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