The Interview Makes $15M Working From the Computer With One Weird Trick
Despite the disastrous mishandling of its release, The Interview has managed to gross more than $15 million in online sales in four days, plus nearly $3 million more in theaters. Sony claims the film was "rented or purchased online more than 2 million times" between Wednesday and Saturday, making it one of the most successful straight-to-VOD releases of all time.
Obviously, that's a low bar, and the film—which, including marketing, cost more than $80 million—will likely lose tens of millions of dollars for Sony.
"We worked hard to get the film out there by Christmas day," Rory Bruer, Sony Pictures president of worldwide distribution, told Variety. "It was such a whirlwind to get it done that it kind of amazes me that we were able to make it happen."
Of course, it was only a "whirlwind" because Sony, concerned about vague threats from anonymous hackers, stupidly pulled the film from theaters in the first place.