Audiences across the United States on Thursday flocked to see the controversial comedy "The Interview" after Sony Pictures reconsidered its decision to pull the film.
The movie, a farce about two journalists recruited by U.S. intelligence to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, had drawn condemnation from Pyongyang, and Sony canceled the film's release following a massive cyberattack on its corporate network and threats of violence against theaters.
Independent theaters then said they would screen the movie. Sony also made the film available through several digital platforms, including YouTube, Google Play and Microsoft Xbox.
Co-director Evan Goldberg and one of the film's stars, Seth Rogen, came out for a midnight screening in Los Angeles and thanked fans for their support.
Many moviegoers said no one had the right to tell them what they could see. Theater managers said they were taking a stand for freedom.
Meanwhile, another cyberattack against Sony caused problems across the country Thursday.
A group calling itself Lizard Squad said it hacked into computers controlling Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox Live video game systems.
People who received the systems for Christmas were unable to connect to the networks to play the games with other users.
Sony and Microsoft gave no reason for the outage and said only that they were working on fixing the problem.
