Sony Pictures Entertainment's "The Interview" almost faced extinction, before a phone call helped release one of the most politically controversial movies to date.

It was late November when hackers broke into Sony's mainframe and made off with employees' personal data including Social Security numbers and five Sony movies. The breach was blamed on North Korea, a claim that gained veracity as the hackers began threatening terrorist violence if "The Interview" released on Christmas Day.

"The Interview" features Seth Rogen and James Franco as two journalists who are recruited by CIA to assassinate North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, played by Randall Park, during an interview. The movie portrays North Korea's fearless leader as a Katy Perry-loving dictator with daddy issues -- something that did not sit well with North Korea. The FBI has stated that North Korea was behind the cyber attacks, although the country has continued to deny involvement.

"It defamed the image of our country. It made a mockery of our sovereignty. We reject it," Kim Song, a North Korean diplomat to the United Nations, told The Associated Press. "But there is no relation (to the hacking)."

Movie theaters soon pulled out amidst fears of violence related to "The Interview." What was once a highly anticipated holiday comedy release was now the centerpiece of a storyline involving censorship, extortion and political games.

Many initially denounced Sony for pulling the picture after support dropped, saying the company was simply giving into terrorists and setting a horrible precedent for the culture of art.

"We probably in retrospect should have said we're exploring other options, because that's exactly what we were doing," said Sony's movie studios CEO Michael Lynton said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"We'd already spent a lot of money, millions and millions of dollars, to get a national audience to release a picture, the last think you want to do is then haltingly bring the movie out," he said.

Luckily there happened to be a knight in shining armor. Lynton placed a phone call to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who agreed to help the studio release "The Interview" through Google Play and YouTube. Lynton recalls Schmidt saying, "this what we've been waiting for." The movie, once doomed to be censored from the public, is now also available for purchase and download through Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Xbox online service.  

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