14 DAY TRIAL // Sony had a feeling that the comedy “The Interview” would be big trouble for them, but never in a million years would they have predicted that it would be because of a group of hackers going by the name Guardians Of Peace (#GOP). They initially assumed James Franco would ruin it.
A new leaked email reveals that at least one Sony executive had almost zero faith in the film, which is still set for release on December 25, mostly because of Franco’s involvement in it.
James Franco plays a TV personality who, together with Seth Rogen, his co-star, lands an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and as they’re about to set out for the country, they’re intercepted by the CIA and tasked with his assassination.
James Franco sucks in “The Interview”
That was the reaction of Sony Pictures UK exec Peter Taylor after he saw the film for the first time, as made clear in an email obtained by Gawker and seen by Page Six: James Franco is really, really bad in it.
This despite the fact that his salary for this one pic, as revealed in another leaked file after the November Sony hack, was of $6.5 million (€5.2 million), $1.9 million (€1.5 million) less than what Rogen got, who was also credited as director and writer.
“James Franco proves once again that irritation is his strong suit which is a shame because the character could have been appealing and funny out of his hands,” Taylor wrote in the email, adding that the film was a “misfire” because it’s “unfunny and repetitive [with] a level of realistic violence that would be shocking in a horror movie.”
Taylor was certain that the film would be trouble for the studio, but mostly because audiences would feel the same way as he did about Franco’s role. #GOP obviously had other plans.
Violent scene leaks online
Speaking of the “level of realistic violence,” a video leaked online the other day showed just what Rogen had in mind for the ending of the film: footage that was supposed to be the ending showed Kim Jong-un on a plane, looking out as a missile hit it. As his mouth expanded into a scream, his face and hair caught on fire and right after his entire body was engulfed by flames, his head exploded into tiny and very real-looking parts.
This scene was the subject of a lot of emails going back and forth between Sony execs and Rogen. Even Sony’s Japan-based CEO Kazuo Hirai, who never meddles in the film studio’s business in the sense of dictating the direction of a project, stepped in to tell Amy Pascal, Sony Pictures co-chairwoman, that the ending “had” to be changed or the movie would never see the light of day.
It took Rogen several tries until he came up with an ending that pleased the bosses, and it included less fire, less particles of head exploding, and overall less gore. In an interview with GMA yesterday, Rogen said that he was “happy” with the finished product, even though his leaked emails betrayed an understandable level of frustration at having to compromise his artistic vision.
Clearly Mr. Taylor didn’t see it that way either.
Here’s the trailer:
