9 Movies That Studios Were Scared Of Releasing

The absolute chaos that The Interview caused in the weeks leading up to its release gave Sony a splintering headache as they tried to deal with it, but oddly enough, it was the studio itself that was largely responsible for the whole mess.

During the script development phase, Sony executives were in full support of the project, and bizarrely, it was even them who suggested that the film be centred around Kim Jong-un; initially, a fake dictator and a fake country were used.

However, Sony's support soon turned into worry and fear. A few months before The Interview was set to debut, North Korea labelled the film an "act of war" stating that they would provide "stern" and "merciless" retaliation if it saw the light of day. Naturally, this shook Sony, and the studio - who also suffered a major data hack around the same time - cancelled The Interview's wide release, as well as its New York premiere.

There was an understandable anxiety that putting the movie in theatres around the world might result in some terror attacks, and while Sony did eventually play it on a small handful of screens, its "big rollout" was reserved for digital platforms like YouTube and Google Play.