Kim Jung-un speaks English conversationally as portrayed in the film, having attended English-language schools in Switzerland for several years while a teenager.
A group of political activists in South Korea reportedly plans to purchase 100.000 copies of The Interview (2014) (with Korean subtitles) and drop DVDs and USB sticks containing the film with balloons over North Korean territory. It is illegal to watch this film (and other foreign media except from China and Vietnam) in North Korea, but a black market exists and many citizens have private access to DVD players and other media.
The line above the movie title translates as "Please do not believe these ignorant dishonorable Americans!".
On June 25, 2014, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency condemned the film (without naming it), promising a "merciless" retaliation if the film is released. "Making and releasing a film on a plot to hurt our top-level leadership is the most blatant act of terrorism and war and will absolutely not be tolerated," KCNA said, citing a government spokesman.
The mine shaft used in the movie is located in Vancouver, Canada, BC and is where Seth Rogen's father used to take him as a kid on weekends.
This film marks the sixth collaboration with Seth Rogen and James Franco.
With all the support from politicans and celebrities such as George Clooney, Sean Penn, Michael Moore and even President Barack Obama, Sony Pictures Entertainment decided to release the film on the original release date (December 25th 2014) in select theatres and VOD.
Randall Park gained 15 pounds and had his hair cut like Jong-un Kim in preparation for the role.
Seth Rogen and James Franco shot a parody of Kanye West's "Bound 2" music video on set during filming.
In late 2014, Sony Pictures was the victim of a major hack of their computer systems in which confidential corporate information and several unreleased complete movies were posted for public consumption. Among reams of other information, the budget for this movie was released, revealing (among other things) the film's total cost ($44 million) and the salaries of its stars (including $8.4 million for co-writer, co-director, and co-star Seth Rogen; $6.5 million for co-star James Franco; and $5,000 for Kevin Federline, who made a cameo appearance). There were also line items in the budget for $74,000 for two tigers, their handlers, and special "tiger accommodations," as well as $250 for a "table of weed, coke, pills and panties" (although only $241 of that was spent). The FBI announced it had credible evidence the hack was orchestrated by North Korea in retaliation for the film's storyline, which involves a plot to kill the real North Korean leader, a claim that was quickly denied by the North Korean government.
During the "Eat the Steak" scene, Skylark is intentionally dressed like The Joker from Batman comics.
This has been described as the first U.S.-made film dealing with an assassination attempt against a real-life world leader who was in power when the movie was made. It is not. In 1941, Fritz Lang, who had fled the Nazis when they took power in Germany, made Man Hunt (1941), about a British hunter (Walter Pidgeon) who attempts to assassinate Adolf Hitler. When that film was made the U.S. was not yet at war with Hitler's Germany.
The opening logo for this film is not the usual, present Columbia Pictures logo, instead it's the 1960s Columbia that was used.
The puppy is a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Seth Rogen's dog Zelda plays the grown up version at the end.
On December 17, 2014, the film was threatened by a group that calls themselves GOP (Guardians of Peace), the ones behind the Sony hacks. The threat mentioned attacks to any movie theaters that played this film. They also referenced 9/11 in their email. Theater chains like AMC and Regal pulled the film from release, in concern that their customers would not be safe. The next day, December 18, 2014, Sony Pictures announced they would not show the film, and pulled the film from its Christmas wide release date. Sony added they did not have plans to release the film on VOD or DVD. The movie was ultimately released to select theaters and bootleg websites on December 25th.
In one interview, Seth Rogen stated that he considered, among other unnamed actors, Matt Damon for the role of Dave Skylark before James Franco was cast. Also, Brad Pitt was considered for a role but he declined.
On December 23, 2014 Seth Rogen announced on Twitter that the film will be released, saying "The people have spoken! Freedom has prevailed! Sony didn't give up! The Interview will be shown at theaters willing to play it on Xmas day!"
On December 19th 2014, the FBI officially named the North Korean government as being responsible for the SONY hack a few weeks earlier.
Evan Goldberg came up with the idea back when Kim Jong-il ran the country.
The Russian text on the tank ("Pan ili propal") literally means "Lord or doomed", slavic saying with the meaning "All or Nothing".
The song playing while Seth Rogen's character travels to China is by Taiwanese Singer/Actor Jay Chou who acted alongside Seth Rogen in The Green Hornet (2011).
Eminem wrote his own lyrics for the rap in his interview.
When Skylark leaves the restaurant in Pyongyang after Kim's threats, a large, triangular building is visible in the background. This is the Ryugyong Hotel. Construction began in 1987, but was halted with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the hotel remained incomplete and was branded "the worst building in the world". In recent years the exterior has been completed, and the opening is mooted.
Two days after Sony announced the cancelation of The Interview (2014), it was announced that it will eventually be released on different platforms. Bittorrent has been expressing that they would love to be the one that distributes the film as a form of freedom of speech.
Rob Lowe and Eminem both make cameos in this film. Actor Ben Schwartz who plays Eminem's producer, also works with Rob Lowe in the television show Parks and Recreation (2009).
According to writer Dan Sterling, there was a scene involving Aaron getting his rectum inspected by guards and dogs, having the supply container replaced with salami.
Starting on Christmas Eve 2014, the film became available on Google Play, YouTube Movies, Microsoft's Xbox Video, and the website seetheinterview.com.
For a short while, this was rated with a perfect 10 out of 10. This was due to a number of online petitions to inflate the movie's rating as a protest to those who wished to censor it. However, this rating would not be enough to get it into the IMDb top 250 because the algorithm to calculate this takes many factors into account. After the theatrical and internet release the score dropped significantly.
The battle scene toward the end (referred to as the "Hitler in a bunker" scene by cast in crew) was shot in one day. "It was very complicated," according to Seth Rogen.
The movie features a tank that was a gift to Kim Il Sung from Stalin. In fact, the Soviet T-34 tanks that were used to defeat the Japanese in northern Korea in World War Two became Kim Il Sung's property when Soviet troops left. They gave the Communists a decisive edge when war broke out, allowing the North to overrun most of the South.
The end credits song is a jazzy version of the song the kids are playing on the guitars earlier in the film written by Lyle Workman.
After the final credits are over a picture appears of character Dave Skylark's deceased dog Digby with the phrase "Digby - In Dedication".
The scene, where the kids are playing their guitars, show a strong reference to a YouTube-video, where North Korean kids are playing almost the same way: too big guitars, smiles, excellent techniques and even the dress up. Kids are trained to perform for their Leader in an early age.
During the scene where Aaron and Dave are leaving North Korea the song "Winds of Change" by the German group The Scorpions is playing. This song was recorded in 1990 and was influenced by the anti communist revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989.
Seth Meyers's cameo was shot during post-production since his talk show debuted months after the film's principal photography.
The character of Dave Skylark was partially based on the way Franco's character was originally written for This Is the End (2013).
In the scene where the young afroed air force pilot sits down to fly the drone, he has a paused video game on the screen along with Vivid's web site.
Randall Park was the first to audition for the role of Kim and got the part immediately. Before filming began, Park gained 15 pounds and shaved his head to resemble Jong-un's crew cut.
On December 23, Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas and Sony Pictures confirmed that they will be releasing the movie on Christmas day as planned, threats or no threats.
In Pineapple Express (2008), James Franco throws Seth Rogen's cell phone at a tree in an attempt to break it. He is successful in doing so in this film.
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg developed the idea for the film in the late 2000s, joking about what would happen if a journalist was required to assassinate a world leader.
Initially, Dan Sterling wrote the script based on a fake dictator from a fake country, but Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Sony executives asked him to rewrite the script focusing on Kim Jong-un'.
Although Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote the character of Kim as "robotic and strict", Randall Park instead played it "sheepish and shy", which they found more humorous.
When Sony was faced with an enormous backlash over their decision to cancel any release of the film after the hack and threats from North Korea, the first call that the company's leadership made was to Google. The reason was that they wanted to find a platform to re-start the release that would not be susceptible to cyber-attacks and felt Google could fit that bill. The Internet giant immediately agreed to put the film on their streaming services and ignored angry North Korean threats; soon afterwards, many other major online providers did the same thing and the film began doing serious business right away.
Leaked memos from Sony reveal that the studio was extremely antsy about the film, claiming the movie was "Desperately unfunny". The execs also felt that the plot was inflammatory and inappropriate, and that the frequent use of violence would be off-putting for most audiences. There was also the fact that very few foreign markets wanted to touch the movie, with reasons ranging from the touchy subject matter to the fact that Seth Rogen apparently has very little appeal outside the United States.
The Jeeps used by the Korean People's Army near the end of the movie are Volkswagen Type 183 'Iltis', a vehicle which used to be in service with the armed forces of Belgium, Canada and Germany during the 1980's.
Seth Rogen's character, in the film, is named Aaron. In real life, Rogen's middle name is Aaron.
The name of the puppy that Jong-un Kim gave to Dave named Digby was reference to Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World (1973), the story of a giant sheepdog.
James Franco says "mangia mangia mangia" which means "eat" in Italian. This is a reference to the movie Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).
The second film directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen.
The film was originally about Kim Jong-il, but the project was put on hold until he died and the film was about his son Jong-un Kim, who was chosen when Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg realised that he was closer to their age.
There are hundreds of visual effects in the film; a crowd scene at the Pyongyang airport, for example, was digitally manipulated with a shot from 22 Jump Street (2014).
Lizzy Caplan played a small role in TV show Freaks and Geeks (1999) alongside James Franco and Seth Rogen.
The basic idea for the movie came about from reading articles about people like Mike Wallace interviewing Osama bin Laden and hearing that Saddam Hussein was a fan of Western movies.
The aircraft (21.9 years old Boeing 747-400) Aaron flew to China for the first time carries a fictional livery which is similar with "Air China". Maybe the producers didn't get the permission to use Air China's image. They used the fictional "Zhangzhou Air" airliner name which is a misspell of "ZhengZhou Air". Zhengzhou is the city where Foxconn assemble iPhone for Apple.
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg came up with the idea for the movie before the friendship between Dennis Rodman and Jong-un Kim developed.
Randall Park, the actor that portrays Jong-un Kim, is the actor from the Verizon commercial "Always There". He also had a small role in Neighbors (2014), also starring Seth Rogen.
In The Interview (2014) these 21 real-life stars, celebrities and historical figures are mentioned: Eminem, Rob Lowe, Bill Maher, Spike Lee, Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Matthew McConaughey, Katy Perry, Ron Howard, Jong-un Kim, Kim Jong-il, John Kerry, Richard Nixon, David Frost, Nicki Minaj, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Joseph Stalin, Barack Obama, Sylvester Stallone, Miley Cyrus, Michael Jordan, Ellen DeGeneres.
Jong-un Kim (played by Randall Park) isn't introduced until around the 50 minute mark.
On December 25th, 2014, The Interview (2014) was released on Google Play for rental (US$ 5.99) and purchase (US$ 14.99).
December 24, 2014 the movie was released via YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Live as well as Sony products, despite the controversy concerning the release of the movie and its story.
Seth Rogen describes the character of Dave Skylark as "Oprah Winfrey meets Ryan Seacrest, but amped up f***in crazy."
The team behind the film actually arranged a licensing deal with Vice so that they could use the B-roll footage the outlet accumulated while in North Korea working on their HBO series, Vice (2013).
According to documents, Jay Z and Beyoncé Knowles were reportedly paid $10,000 each to cameo, but do not appear in the film.
Business Insider reported via Free North Korea Radio that there was high demand for bootleg copies of the film in North Korea. The South Korean human rights organizations Fighters for a Free North Korea and Human Rights Foundation, largely made up of North Korean defectors, planned to distribute DVD copies of The Interview via balloon drops. The groups had previously air-dropped offline copies of the Korean Wikipedia into North Korea on a bootable USB memory device. The balloon drop was postponed after the North Korean government referred to the plan as a de facto "declaration of war."
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg started seriously talking about making the movie during the making of This Is the End (2013).
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg researched meticulously by reading non-fiction books and watching video footage about North Korea. The script was later reviewed by an employee in the State Department.
The fiasco caused a Fox subsidiary to cancel plans to adapt Pyongyang, a French-Canadian graphic novel based on the writer's experiences in North Korea, starring' Steve Carell' and directed by Gore Verbinski. Pyongyang most likely would not have warranted a response from this level from North Korea, but the film was still cancelled as a precaution. Now that this has been film released, it's possible Pyongyang may re-enter production at some point in the future.
Certain elements of the film were edited in post-production to be less offensive to North Korea, such as the removal of certain attributes to their military uniform and Jong-un Kim's death being somewhat censored.
Seth Rogen predicted that the film would make its way to North Korea, stating that "we were told one of the reasons they're so against the movie is that they're afraid it'll actually get into North Korea. They do have bootlegs and stuff. Maybe the tapes will make their way to North Korea and cause a revolution."
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote the script for places they knew existed in Vancouver having grown up there, using locations as stand-ins for Beijing, North Korea, and New York.
Dan Sterling was hired to write the screenplay as opposed to having Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg write it themselves, and Sterling brought a lot of research to the film and also created a parallel between the characters of Skylark and Jong-un Kim.
This movie was planned to have a Christmas 2014 release for theatres, which got cancelled. Instead, it got a theatrical release that was vastly limited that occurred simultaneously with a digital release.
On December 10, Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan announced that the film would not be released in Japan as live-action comedy films do not often perform well in the market; in the Asia-Pacific region, the film would be released only in Australia and New Zealand.
Kim's favourite show was The Big Bang Theory (2007) - besides Dave's show.
James Franco's character's name in the movie is Dave Skylark. In real life, James has a younger brother named Dave (Dave Franco) who has also had a successful acting career.
The film is based more on political thrillers than action comedies, with Seth Rogen citing Ridley Scott and Michael Mann movies as influences.
The Alamo Drafthouse independent theater chain in Texas announced they were going to air Team America: World Police (2004) in their theaters (for free) in place of the movie's premiere being cancelled. Then Paramount Pictures pulled the plug on that. Said theater announced showings of this film shortly after Sony agreed on the release.
Spoilers
Skylark's bonding with Jong-un Kim is based on former basketball player Dennis Rodman, who traveled to North Korea to host basketball exhibitions and befriended Jong-un.
The finale of the movie is completely foreshadowed by Dave Skylark (James Franco) early in the film when he's discussing his vision of how the assassination would go. He predicted that he would take a bullet in his bullet proof vest, they would escape into a secret tunnel, and eventually be brought home by "Seal team 6" on a zodiac, wrapped up in blankets.
At the end of the movie, Dave names his tell-all "An Unexpected Journey." This is in homage to his love of The Lord Of The Rings/The Hobbit.
When Jong-un Kim is cursing in Korean after being told Skylark is alive, he says the Korean word for 'girl' (nyun) rather than the word for 'boy' (nom)
When Jong-un Kim's helicopter blows up in slow motion, it's a reference to Katy Perry's music video of "Firework", the song Dave and Kim listened to in the tank.
The story is, more or less, the plot that James Franco and Seth Rogen discuss for a Pineapple Express (2008) sequel in This Is the End (2013). In that proposed idea, Red hires Dale and Saul to kill Woody Harrelson because he's hurting Red's drug trade. In both movies, Franco's character correctly guesses his fate.