The Sony-backed comedy, The Interview, starred Seth Rogen and James Franco as Americans tasked by the CIA with assassinating North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
That 2014 movie infamously played a role in the Sony hack, in which data and emails from Sony employees were leaked online. The hackers demanded Sony withdraw the movie from theatrical release.
The studio also faced threats from North Korea, so it opted to skip nationwide release and debut the film via online digital rentals and purchases.
Rogen said the fallout “re-calibrated what I think is controversial,” adding, “After that, I was like, now I know what it’s like. Unless the president is giving news conferences about it, that’s controversy.
If someone is getting mad about it on social media, that’s not controversy.
Having like the U.N. have to make a statement about it, that’s a controversy.”
“What’s crazy is now it’s on TV,” Rogen noted. “It’s on FX at 2 p.m. It was at one point the most controversial thing in the world, and now I’ll be flipping channels on Sunday afternoon, and it’s just playing. I was worried maybe it would cause some longer-lasting fallout than it did.”
Rogen has been making press for months now in support of his role in Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, which is nominated for 7 Oscars.