Lido Theatre screens ‘The Interview’
Intrigued by the hype preceding the limited release of “The Interview,” moviegoers flocked to the Lido Theatre in Newport Beach this week to catch the controversial comedy even after threats of violence from hackers.
The Lido is one of a handful of movie houses in Orange County to screen the film, which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco as journalists instructed to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after scheduling an interview with him. Theaters in Garden Grove, Westminster and Anaheim also are showing the film.
“It’s just a movie,” said Hammer Brunch, who operates the Lido Theatre’s in-house production company, Lido Live. “We didn’t believe anything bad was going to happen showing it, and it hasn’t. Why have people scared in their own hometown?”
The flick was initially planned for release in thousands of theaters nationwide, but Sony announced Dec. 17 that it planned to pull the film after major theater chains, including AMC and Regal, refused to screen it amid threats from a group of hackers.
The FBI has said it has evidence that North Korea was responsible for the threat, but the country has denied it.
When a small number of venues expressed interest in showing the film, Sony decided to reverse its decision.
The Lido’s first showing on Christmas night brought 300 people to the single-screen cinema, which seats 580, Brunch said. A film generally will bring about 75 to 100 people to the theater on a given day, he said.
“I’m sure we’ll probably do 30% to 40% better than normal because people are curious,” he said.
Ticket sales Friday were up significantly compared with a typical Friday, Brunch said, though he didn’t have specific numbers.
Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist from Newport Beach who has consulted or testified in many high-profile U.S. criminal cases, took his family to the theater to see the film Friday afternoon. Though it’s not a movie he would usually watch, Dietz said it was better than he expected.
However, his real motivation was his sense of “patriotic duty,” said Dietz, who has been involved in, among many others, the cases of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and Jared Lee Loughner, who pleaded guilty in the shootings of then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and other people in Tucson, Ariz.
“We shouldn’t yield to threats and allow them to disrupt our lives,” he said.
Newport resident Aaron Cohen, a fan of Rogen and Franco, said he was impressed with the acting and the film’s script, as well as the innuendo inherent in Rogen’s flicks.
“It was very slapstick,” he said. “I enjoyed it.”
About 300 theaters nationwide played the film Thursday, according to the movie’s Facebook page. Sony also released the movie online.
The film banked about $1 million at the box office on Christmas Day and is expected to make more over the weekend, according to a statement from Sony.
The Lido will feature six daily showings through New Year’s Day.