Apple, after reportedly being involved in early negotiations for the film, has put Sony’s “The Interview” up for streaming on iTunes. Apple is offering the film at the same price as Google, YouTube, and Xbox video – $6 to rent and $15 to own.
Sony announced last week, that due to a lack of support from theaters and threats made by cyber hackers, it would not be releasing “The Interview” in theaters or online. President Obama, however, voiced his opinions on the matter earlier in the week and said that Sony made a mistake by scrapping its plans to show the film because of the threat. Sony then reversed its decision and released the movie, on Christmas Day, to more than 200 independent movie theaters, as well as online.
An earlier report from the New York Times had stated that Apple declined to offer “The Interview” on iTunes for unknown reasons. Google, in its statement regarding the online availability of the film, said that it just “could not sit on the sidelines and allow a handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country.”
The Interview is available on iTunes now for $6 to rent and $15 to own. If you already bought the movie on another platform, here’s how to watch it on your Apple device.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Just bought it and am downloading it now!
That’s another vote against evil digital crusaders against freedom.
And another vote for crappy movies.
The shameful folks in this story are the theatre chains that refused to show the movie. Why isn’t anyone talking about them and their decision making processes?
I find it hard to hold much blame against the cinemas. They had threats made against their patrons weeks after the leaks occurred. In that time neither Sony or the FBI seemed to be have gotten on top of the situation. I doubt at the time either could 100% guarantee that the threats weren’t genuine, so they made the safer decision.
Along with everything else going on it was probably an easy decision. On the very very off chance something had happened in a cinema as a result of airing the film, people would be blaming the cinemas and the FBI for not taking the threats seriously after the perpetrators had already made a mockery of them in Sony leading up to Christmas.
The cinemas themselves look to have just been caught in the cross fire here. They probably had far better films that’ll draw larger crowds to allocate seating to anyway.
Homeland Security said the threats weren’t credible. The theaters are a bunch of cowards and lost out on a ton of money this weekend.
Save yourself $6 and get a nice latte in your local independent coffee shop. If someone asked me to describe this movie in one word, I would use “garbage”. This is one of the worst specimens of the so called American culture. I rented it December 25 on Xbox, and stopped 12 minutes into the movie. It was not just bad. It was insulting to my intelligence. I cannot believe Sony had the hutzpah to release this atrocity.
Sony did this to itself to create publicity and be able to recoup at least some money they invested in this travesty.
Seems that they’ve only realised it in the US iTunes Store. I live in Guatemala, and it is not available yet.
Seems that they’ve only released it in the US iTunes Store. I live in Guatemala, and it is not available yet.
Eh, a little late. Rented it last night via Google Play and watched it on my Roku box.
Yes, because now the holiday shutdown of iTunes Connect is over and therefore it could be released on the iTunes Store
Well done Apple.
Seems like Apple is a little late to the party on this one. They weren’t leading on this and didn’t stick their head up until it was clear. It is morally embarrassing, but as a shareholder I understand why they did it (they didn’t want to offend the Chinese by supporting a “subversive” movie to a totalitarian regime).
If they didn’t want to offend the Chinese, Apple wouldn’t be showing it now either. This is a simple matter of Apple not being in a hurry because of the iTunes Connect shutdown. Your theory doesn’t work at all.
Tim Cook: Coast is clear! Thanks Google!
Or Microsoft. However, Amazon and Netflix still don’t have it up.
Maybe it is good to include that it is only available on the US iTunes store. Sad European here :(
you are not missing much
trust me, you do not want to spend 2 hours of your life to see that garbage.
It is about the principal of excluding Europe/the rest of the world in this connected world. Hollywood and tech companies don’t seem to care about us. We are still waiting for music services like Pandora, iheartradio, ITunes radio. Movie services like Hulu, Amazon prime and others. Netflix is finally slowly rolling out. Countless times I find a cool gadget only to find out that the company only ships to the US or they will send it outside the U.S. but you have to pay an outrageous amount of money for shipping. And pretty much every week I bumb into a “this video is not available in your county” message. Of course it is not only the fault of Hollywood and tech companies, also the outdated copyright laws, European business climate and more. But for me as an end user it is very frustrating.
Just playing devil’s advocate here, but it’s not always the studio’s / company’s fault if a movie/song/service is not available in your country. These companies have to go thru every single country’s government/regulations before they can release anything.
Torrents are out there, if anything.
Apple made up a bunch of excuses why they didn’t have the movie up day one, due to “logistical issues” and “holiday schedules”. Bullshit. Apple cares that much less about freedom of expression than Microsoft, Google, and Sony. They are getting too big. Soon it’s not going to be about the people.
What are you talking about? Apple never officially commented until today. This movie is so dumb I wouldn’t watch it if someone paid me. I don’t think anyone other than Apple haters who comment on tech sites give a crap whether iTunes had this crappy movie on Dec 25 or not.
In case you didn’t know. Most of their staff were off over Christmas.
Funny enough, so was everybody else.
Wow, that comment is full of a lot more stupid than it looks at first glance!
I was disapointed in Apple in not taking a more aggressive stance in making available “The Interview” on iTunes. Tim Cook wait for the all clear before streaming it. Bad Show
Or maybe he was waiting for people to be back at work so they could get it up properly without rushing it? I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be called up to come into the office to get this pile of shite up. It’s a terrible movie, like 99% of all Seth Rogan movies.
save your money, ppl. the movie is crap. pure 100% genuine crap
Wow dude cut that pumpkin pie haircut.
Reblogged this on Apple Rumors.
It’s about time. They should have done it the day it came out.
All other stuff aside, the word is the movie is awful anyway. Sony may make more from all the hoopla about it than not. I think I will keep my $6.
“at the same price as Google, YouTube, and Xbox video” – Google owns YouTube, that’s a bit redundant
Well it may own Youtube, but he was listing the different services where you can buy/rent the movie from.
Here better movies from iTunes – http://goo.gl/665t6V – Thanks Apple
There’s no evidence N. Korea had anything to do with the hacking. It smells to me that Sony knew they had a dog on their hands and came up with an ingenious way to get people to pay to see it bark.
Doubt that. The hack created a lot of headaches for Sony. They’ve released far worse movies without issue.
We can question who was behind it but it certainly wasn’t Sony.
I got the movie from a different source. After reading mentions of the movie getting poor reviews on RT, I went in with low expectations. My friends and I loved it, and it was better than expected.
wanna watch man