[Unidentified Male:] I felt it's a movie that we should see. That nobody should be allowed to stop us from freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
[Banfield:] Moviegoers, boy, are they embracing the first amendment. As the controversial comedy "The Interview" hit hundreds of theaters on Christmas Day, despite FBI warnings of threats against theaters, screening New York to L.A., all of them went off without a hitch, more or less. It also wasn't a bad day for the bottom line, either. The Seth Rogen film about a fictitious plot to assassinate the leader of North Korea banked almost a million dollars at the box office. And joining me right now to talk about that and how it actually happened, Rosa Flores at the theater yesterday, watching the theatergoers coming in and out, along with senior media correspondent Brian Stelter. So some breaking news just coming in to us?
[Brian Stelter, Cnn Senior Media Correspondent:] Sony is talking about the box office totals for the first time, so we can show you part of their statement. That say, "The audience reaction was fantastic yesterday. The limited release, in under 10 percent of the amount of theaters originally planned, featured numerous sellouts and a first-day gross over $1 million." So that's a nice mark for Sony to hit, the $1-million mark on their first day. That's something for them to celebrate after what has been a very rough month for them, ever since that cyber attack.
[Banfield:] Was that something they were always planning to release or were they waiting to see if it was good news and then release it if it's good, keep it under wraps if it's
[Stelter:] The statement, do you mean? What do you mean?
[Banfield:] The money, the statement
[Stelter:] I think they're trying to put the most positive spin they can on this. They were going to premiere this film in 2000 to 3,000 theaters. That's why they say it was under 10 percent of the original plan. So they're happy to have made any money at all off of this. For being in only 300 theaters, a million dollars is pretty good.
[Banfield:] There was one theater that was critical to this whole story, and it was the one you were at. I only say that because you were there and I got a chance to talk to you when it actually opened. I really actually loved seeing the comments of the people going in and then coming out. And they were very profound, a lot of people saying this was their exercise of free speech, whether they wanted to actually see this particular script or not.
[Rosa Flores, Cnn Correspondent:] Right, right, right. And a lot of people said this is probably the best thing that happened to Sony with this particular movie, because a lot of people were not planning on watching this movie if it were not for the fact that they wanted to exercise their patriotic duty and support free speech. As a matter of fact, the woman that specifically told us that, here's what she said when she walked out of the theater. Take a listen.
[Willie Jasso, Moviegoer:] I certainly enjoyed it. It's not the greatest comedy ever made, but it was funny, funnier in some places than in others. I think my overwhelming conclusion is that it would have been much funnier if no one had died.
[Banfield:] That's great. She loved it.
[Flores:] Although she did say it made her feel uncomfortable, laughing throughout the movie, knowing that someone was going to die at the end. She's like, there's nothing funny about someone dying.
[Banfield:] Well, there is that controversy. We keep bringing that up. We all talk about how no one should try to suppress free speech, we should be a little bit responsible with our free speech as well.
[Stelter:] I had the head of one of the biggest media company say that to me this week. He said, "I understand the film. I understand it's supposed to be funny. I understand it might be funnier to make it about a real life person. But if it had come across my desk I would have suggested making it a fictional dictator."
[Flores:] And I think they didn't have to kill him at the end for it to be a good comedy. That's the other thing. After watching it, it's like why did you have to kill him?
[Banfield:] For all three of us, the Twitters are going to be lighting up with, "Come on! How could you three people have any sympathy for a guy like Kim Jong-un?" And it's not about that. It's about having respect and the same respect due back to your president, your leader, and anybody else around the world, because we would be incensed if someone blew up our president, our real, sitting president, not a fictitious character.
[Stelter:] If there were a movie involving Obama or Putin or any other world leader, it would have been a different story than it would have been about Kim Kong-un. But we should point out it was incident-free yesterday. There were no security issues at theaters across the country.
[Banfield:] Well, kind of. I heard there was a power outage at one theater.
[Stelter:] There was. That's right. In northern New Jersey there was a power outage that affected the movie theater at a pivotal moment for the film. It made people a little nervous for a few minutes. Some people started heading for the exits. It turned out it was just a neighborhood blackout.
[Banfield:] I'd have been more than a little nervous, knowing that there was a terror threat.
[Flores Banfield:] I would have bolted out of that theater.
[Banfield:] So something I expected, but I didn't expect it on this kind of number, 750,000 illegal downloads of this movie yesterday. That's huge.
[Stelter:] That's just the ones we can count, the English-language versions. In China this film is also being pirated and getting review there as well, on their on the illegal file-sharing websites there is. That may cut into the profits Sony makes on YouTube and elsewhere, because now that they're releasing this online, it's a real test to see, are people going to pay for it, or are they going to watch the stealed pirated version
[Flores:] And the other thing is that if you were able to use it through SeeTheInterview.com, I think you were able to even just give the link to somebody else via e-mail, so those you can't count either because you get access to it for 48 hours and if I just say, hey
[Stelter:] You share it.
[Flores:] You just share the link, how do you count that?
[Banfield:] It's like TV ratings. How many people are sitting in that living room? Because there's one person paying the six bucks, and how many eyeballs are on that screen?
[Stelter:] That's right. We'll never really know how many people actually chose to watch it, and partly because Sony doesn't have to release data about these rentals unless they're so strong they want to brag about it. But you know, it is a landmark movement for movie industry regardless of how people actually chose to pay for the movie, because it does show that there can be a simultaneous release in theaters and at home. And that's something we will see more of in the future even though big movie chains don't want it to happen.
[Banfield:] Lest anybody watching us right now, thanks. Boy, you guys really missed the bigger headline. It's the hack of PlayStation and Xbox. We did not, because actually, if you could stick around, I know you have some excellent reporting on this and some specifics about it, as well. Lizard, really? The lizard hackers?
[Stelter:] I'll try to explain it.
[Banfield:] Okay. So that's coming in just a moment. And also ahead, this year in medicine, we're going to tell you why the future is looking a lot brighter and your future may be looking longer, specifically if you or anyone you know has been afflicted with cancer.