"Let's make a statement for America and watch this freedom-of-speech movie," Matt Smith yelled to about 100 people gathered to see the first screening of The Interview at the Riverdale 10 Cinema in Little Rock at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
Smith, the owner of the theater, quickly followed that message with a directive for people to turn off their cellphones and a shout of "Merry Christmas! I love you!"
Many moviegoers -- some wearing Christmas pajamas, others new jackets and sweaters plucked from under the Christmas tree that morning -- applauded and whooped as the lights in the theater lowered and the movie began.
The Interview, which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco, has improbably become a symbol of free speech in the U.S. over the past week. The film, a comedy about a plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was initially shelved earlier this month by film studio Sony Pictures Entertainment after hackers, linked by the FBI to North Korea, launched a cyberattack against Sony and threatened violence if the film was shown.
About 80 percent of the theaters in the United States and Canada opted out of showing the movie, and Sony Entertainment decided Dec. 17 to cancel the film's Christmas release.
But, President Barack Obama said Dec. 19 that the decision to shelve the film was a mistake, and a groundswell of support grew across the U.S. for the movie to be shown. On Tuesday, Sony announced the limited release of the film at 331 mostly independent theaters around the country.
Four Arkansas theaters -- Riverdale 10 in Little Rock, Cabot Silver Screen 8 in Cabot, Searcy Cinema 8 in Searcy and the Hot Springs Mall Cinema, all owned by Smith -- showed the movie Thursday.
At the Little Rock theater, people from as far away as Stuttgart and Conway, interrupted their holiday to go see the film on the big screen.
While the movie was shown without incident, the company was hit Thursday with another attack, this time by hackers who caused connection failures on the company's PlayStation Network, as well as Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox Live. Via Twitter, a group called Lizard Squad claimed responsibility for Internet services' outages.
Last week, major cinema chains dropped The Interview from their planned lineups after a hacker group called Guardians of Peace invoked Sept. 11, 2001, in its threats of attacks on theaters that showed the film.
On Thursday, Smith -- who wore a Santa hat and a T-shirt promoting The Interview -- was frenetic, keeping early moviegoers at bay while the theater staff cleaned the theater after the movie's first showing. He walked away from questions several times to make sure concessions were running smoothly, to shake hands with customers who wanted to thank him for showing the film, and to field requests for miniature promotional movie posters that sat at the ticket-taking podium.
For Smith, who bought the Riverdale theater less than a year ago, whether to run the movie was never in question.
"When they first pulled the film, I figured it would eventually run in January or February, and I told my Sony rep that I still wanted it. When he called me back Tuesday, I immediately said yes," Smith said Thursday. "This fits with the movies that we play. We do get big-budget movies and we do show them in our theaters, but we also get ... movies that other theaters don't show. This is something our patrons expected from us."
Smith said he didn't know what to expect from patrons, whether they would be scared away by the threats or would rally around the anti-censorship and First Amendment sentiments and buy tickets to see the film.
Scott McDonald and his son Jared McDonald, 17, drove Thursday from Conway to see the movie, which they had planned to see before the Sony hack and threats surfaced.
"We're not going to be told what we can and can't see," said the older McDonald.
His son nodded, noting that he was glad they had seen the movie.
"It was pretty funny from beginning to end," he said.
His father added, "I think it says something that I haven't heard this much laughter in a movie in a while, and it was throughout the whole thing."
Meg Johnston of Little Rock went to the movie with family members.
"I wanted to see what the hype was about. There was so much controversy about the film that I just wanted to check it out," she said, adding that it is normally not her kind of movie. "I wouldn't have seen this in a million years if all of this hadn't happened."
The movie started with a young girl singing in Korean about exaggerated stereotypes of Americans and making threats. Her performance drew uproarious laughter throughout the crowd. Most of the patrons, who ranged from toddlers to grandparents, guffawed and chortled throughout the film, culminating in loud applause and cheers as the credits rolled.
Smith said he expected the later showings to have an even higher turnout. He said the film will run at least through New Year's Day and longer, depending on how long moviegoers turn out to see it.
Information for this article was provided by Christopher Palmeri and David McLaughlin of Bloomberg News; Bill Barrow of the Associated Press; and Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply of the New York Times News Service.
A section on 12/26/2014