Texas Theater Takes on North Korea With Team America After Sony's 'The Interview' is cancelled, a theater finds a creative marketing hook to fight back.
By Ray Hennessey Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
When North Korea gives you lemons, make some "F**k Yeah" lemonade.
Like many cinemas, an Alamo Drafthouse theater in the Dallas-Fort Worth area was all set to show The Interview, the James Franco-Seth Rogen film at the heart of the Sony hacking incident. But it wasn't to be. Hackers threatened to blow up theaters that showed the film, since the comedy features, among other jabs, a scene depicting the assassination of dictator Kim Jong-un.
Several theater chains took the threat seriously. After all, the hackers did make good on their promise to expose troves of embarassing emails from Sony. As a result, several chains refused to show the film, and Sony took a step further and pulled the movie altogether. To many, that looked like victory for the North Korean censors (if they actually exist) and a blow to free expression.
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But we still have Team America.
Bosses at Alamo Drafthouse decided that, if they couldn't show a movie where Kim Jong-un gets blown up, they might as well show the one where his dad, Kim Jong-il, gets his comeuppance, at least in marionette form.
So, on Dec. 27, at 7 p.m. local time, Alamo is airing Team America: World Police, free to all.
For those who don't know, Team America was the 2004 marionette creation of South Park co-geniuses Trey Parker and Matt Stone. In film history, it's known for a few things, not the least of which was graphic (and, um, creative) puppet sex and the theme song, "America, F*ck Yeah."
The star, though, is really the marionette version of the elder Kim, who stereotypically mixes his "r's" and "l's" as he sings of his sorrows in the ballad I'm So Ronery and kills a fake Hans Blix in a pool of sharks. He is the ultimate villain, and he meets his end by falling from a balcony and impaling himself on the point of a pickelhaube. Movie magic, though it didn't go over well in North Korea, particularly during the times of day when they actually had their electricity turned on.
Here's the Facebook invite to the movie showing.
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