‘The Interview’ earns $1M over weekend; DPRK insults Obama

World Today

This photo combination shows U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. North Korea has compared Obama to a monkey and blamed the U.S. for shutting down its Internet amid the hacking row over the movie “The Interview.” (AP Photos)

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea blamed its recent Internet outage on the United States on Saturday and hurled racially charged insults at President Barack Obama over the hacking row involving the movie “The Interview.”

This photo released by Sony - Columbia Pictures shows James Franco, left, as Dave and Seth Rogen as Aaron in a scene from "The Interview." (AP Photo/Sony - Columbia Pictures, Ed Araquel)

This photo released by Sony – Columbia Pictures shows James Franco, left, as Dave and Seth Rogen as Aaron in a scene from “The Interview.” (AP Photo/Sony – Columbia Pictures, Ed Araquel)

The DPRK’s powerful National Defense Commission, which is headed by country leader Kim Jong Un and is the nation’s top governing body, said Obama was behind the release of the comedy that depicts Kim’s assassination. The commission described the movie as illegal, dishonest and reactionary.

“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” an unidentified spokesman at the commission’s Policy Department said in a statement carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The White House’s National Security Council declined to comment Saturday.

The DPRK defense commission also blamed Washington for intermittent outages of North Korean websites this past week. The outages happened after Obama blamed the Sony hack on the DPRK and promised to respond “in a place and time and manner that we choose.” The U.S. government has declined to say whether it was behind the Internet shutdown in the DPRK.

The DPRK has denied involvement in a crippling cyberattack on Sony Pictures but has expressed fury over the comedy which depicts the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Sony Pictures initially called off the release of the film, citing threats of terror attacks against U.S. movie theaters. Obama criticized Sony’s decision, and the movie opened this past weel in a dramatic reversal of events.

After the studio decided to allow theaters to show the film and made it available for rental and purchase on digital platforms, the film made just over $1 million in ticket sales from 331 locations for an impressive $3,142 per theater average, according to distributor Sony Pictures. Many theaters reported selling out showings.

Critics and movie goers in New York told The Associated Press on Thursday that Sony’s controversial comedy “The Interview” is less than a masterpiece.

Story compiled with information from CCTV America and AP reports.


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