Calling Out The Craven: George R. R. Martin Offers To Screen 'The Interview' At HIS Theater

By Kristy Puchko | Celebrity | December 19, 2014 |

By Kristy Puchko | Celebrity | December 19, 2014 |

When Sony announced that they’d caved to terrorist threats and cancelled the release of the Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy The Interview, Twitter erupted with outrage from celebs. But Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin had thoughts that could not be contained to a 140 word limit, so he took it to Live Journal.

There he unleashed an indictment against “corporate cowardice,” saying, “It’s a good thing these guys weren’t around when Charlie Chaplin made THE GREAT DICTATOR. If Kim Jong-Un scares them, Adolf Hitler would have had them shitting in their smallclothes.”

Then he took it a step farther, assuming whatever risk might come with screening the film at his theater. He writes:

I haven’t seen THE INTERVIEW. I have no idea how good or bad a film it is. It might be hilarious. It might be stupid and offensive and outrageous. (Actually, I am pretty sure about the ‘outrageous’ part). It might be all of the above.

That’s not the point, though. Whether it’s the next CITIZEN KANE or the next PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, it astonishes me that a major Hollywood film could be killed before release by threats from a foreign power and anonymous hackers.

For what it’s worth, the Jean Cocteau Cinema will be glad to screen THE INTERVIEW (assuming that Sony does eventually release the film for theatrical exhibition, rather than streaming it or dumping it as a direct-to-DVD release), should it be made available to us. Come to Santa Fe, Seth, we’ll show your film for you.

From there, Martin actually tried to follow in the footsteps of the Alamo Drafthouse, which opted to replace The Interview’s lost screenings with Paramount’s Team America: World Police, which memorably mocks Kim Jon-Un’s father/predecessor Kim Jong-Il. Well, when that movie got pulled too, Martin seethed in a blog post “I Call It Craven”, “I guess I should contact our new North Korean masters to ask them what movies we will be allowed to show at the Cocteau.”

Reached for further comment, Martin offers to terrorists: