Sony Pictures Entertainment on Wednesday canceled any future release of "The Interview," the controversial film in which characters played by stars Seth Rogen and James Franco are sent by the CIA to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
"This is the End," the last movie written and directed by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, featured a boatload of real Hollywood celebrities playing versions of themselves, several of whom (including Aziz Ansari, Rihanna, Michael Cera and Mindy Kaling) were killed during an apocalypse. Many laughed. No one complained.
For obvious reasons, controversy has been 1,000 times greater for Rogen and Goldberg's "The Interview," which was never exactly greeted with chants of "Great idea!" But a threat to attack theaters showing the film from the group Guardians of Peace, which has taken credit for a massive information hack at Sony, caused numerous major theater chains, including Regal, AMC and Cinemark, to announce Wednesday that they will not show "The Interview." Those decisions led Sony to cancel its release.
Here's a look back at the movie's rocky trajectory in the last six months.
